Not new planes, but does anyone know how many used 320 series have been delivered and how many firm deliveries are on the way?

 

Here is the United MX google spreadsheet you'll want to save to your "favorites"....looks like only 1 x 320 still at Lake City, FL mod but up to 34 x 319s still inbound via China Southern and EasyJet. Spreadsheet appears to indicate only 7 x 319s in 2019 however as I think they are metering them in to control capacity expansion to keep investors from getting skitish. I would imagine if our pax loads keep exceeding our ASMs in monthly year-over-year updates like they did for June, we COULD accelerate capacity expansion however.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...xXAo/htmlview#

p.s. Nice feature of spreadsheet is that you can track exact location of each tail in our inventory by simply clicking on registration number...enjoy!

 

There have been only 55 orders for A319NEO compared to over 6,000 for the 320/321NEO variants. The initial and operating costs just don’t make sense, which is why so many more A220s have been ordered than a319NEOs. Wouldn’t be surprised to see 319NEOs abandoned by AB in the next couple years.

 

Same for the max7. Southwest placed most of the orders and then postponed delivery. The bigger max and neo seem to be selling well though. Who knows? The a220 would count as a new fleet type, provide 100-130 seat lift, and allow Kirby more 76 seat rj’s at the regionals. My guess is that we’ll wait until there is a huge waiting list and then place an order.

 

As soon as every other airline places about 7 years worth of A220 orders, we’ll buy used E190’s for mainline and send E2s to the regionals.

I think Kirby is smart enough to know the right play, but trying to steer the buerocracy of United is like trying to avoid an iceberg on the titanic.

 

That's exactly right.

When you shrink an airplane, the number of seats drops faster than does cost. The shrunk A319neo/737-7 MAX can't compete on cost with the stretched A220-300 even though they have almost an identical seat count.

When you stretch an airplane the numbers of seats grows faster than costs. Look how popular the A320neo, A321neo, 737-800, 737-8 MAX, 737-900, 737-9 MAX and 737-10 MAX are. It is because of their per-unit (per seat) costs.

A shrunk larger design can't compete with a modern plane designed for the 100-130 seat market.

Which 747 did the best? The shrunk 747SP or the stretched 747-400?

Of course, as you stretch a design you run into other problems. Poor performance, higher approach and landing speeds, shorter range, etc. These problems, eventually, establish the limit to which you can stretch a design. As with most things in engineering, everything is a compromise.

 

It is actually quite a bit more complicated than that. SW didn't buy 800's for a long time for a reason.

The pie chart of airline costs changes dramatically with the cost of fuel. When fuel is high, everything else gets kicked to the sideline. Then, the stretched airplanes are king.

SW didn't fly long airplanes because they couldn't turn them in 20 minutes. When gas is cheap, other factors costs become a larger percentage of the pie, chiefly labor. Running short turn times and high aircraft/crew utilization can be more important when gas is cheap.

Gas stayed high so long SW couldn't take it anymore and ordered 800's.

 

I’ve heard 145 seats, just short of the 150 for current A320s.

 

I don't believe the 747 was stretched until the -8.

 

Total length you are right, upper deck was stretched on the 300/400 though adding more seats. SP was shorter than 100-200-300-400.