Quickest way to grow domestic capacity for United is to acquire aircraft AND pilots who are already trained... and only need to be tweaked on company SOP differences... personally I think this is going to happen sometime in the next few years to right size us with our two main rivals; DAL and AMR.

 

Several senior Bus management types have been traveling to China and Europe lately to test fly A-320s that we are considering buying. Their job is to see how much effort it would take to bring them over to our standards. That comes from one of them who I know.

 

So dumb them down to match our fleet?

 

Eggsakly. Boeing and Airbus sell the "Full Monty" to 3rd world carriers, at full list price, subsidized by EX-IM or EURO financing at low rates. They all get full rated thrust, every option (down to rain removal fluid and brake fans on 320). We (UAL and other US carriers) dumb down our aircraft and negotiate for a lower price.

Sorry. GMAFB. I flew brand new Chinese 319's and 320's and brand new Vietnamese 321's. And we used sims in a couple of other countries, including Singapore for PC's. We got the dumbed down versions. The Singapore sims had "Disco smoke" systems to simulate (extremely well) smoke in the cockpit. Anybody at UAL or CAL ever get real smoke in the cockpit in a sim? No, I didn't think so.

3rd world carriers get the lot. We will dumb it down when it arrives to reduce "differences".

Rain removal fluid rocks. I can't believe how much better it is than wipers. Brake fans are an Airbus scam, except maybe for 321's. I have never flown 321's without them, so I will defer.

It is cheap and easy to disable or derate stuff we don't want. Not so much the other way.

 

A320 brake fans are not a scam.

They definitely reduce the temp of the....sensors.

 

You guys 320s don't have brake fans? All but a handful of ours have them, even the 319s. We actually use them a lot with the high, hot, and short airports we use.

 

We have brake fans....mechanics or rampers wheel them out and turn them on. Locations vary but not to exceed 3 airports at any one time.

LAS, PHX, DEN perhaps. even SEA has a brake fan.

 

Bond out some $$ to buy B6? A bunch of Airbus, orders and pilots who love to help out with the company's tag line.

-Bubs

 

UAL bought Pan AM London assets when they went under. Pilots came with the deal as did the 727 London TDY deals. The rest of the pilots were offered preferential interviews.

Read between the lines just a bit. Foreign airlines, Chinese example, some are not unionized. So, no pilots or interviews. But if a bankrupt carrier sold assets to UAL with a union, in the past, some jobs have come with them, as in Pan Am London, or interviews.

Probably wouldn't come to pass, but not out of the question. Especially if they have a pilot union, you can be the question will be asked.

 

NK makes way more financial sense, and would keep us smaller than DAL/AAand more likely to pass DOJ muster.