But as of now there are 34 total coming. I’m not sure if they’re parking any, but that’s a solid chunk of mainline growth even if we do swap out a few for older frames.

 

There is a new picture hanging up on the A320 bulletin board in IAH. It looks like a picture from a slide at the standards meeting. It shows the fleet growing from 166 to 200 airframes by 2022.

On another note, the last A320 that came from China Southern took 10 months to be converted.

 

Even our oldest 319 and 320’s are holding up pretty well. As of about 2 years ago 4004 was only half way through its expected service life according to a guy in TOMC.

I had a long ORD layover and walked over to get a tour of the hotdog factory, somehow one of the TOMC guys and I got on the discussion of fleet life and he pulled up 4004 since it was the oldest one he could see airborne. Showed me the numbers on hours/cycles/etc. it was pretty staggering and fascinating. Recommend a walk though if you’ve never been.

 

There WAS an RJ that had that range, it used to go by the Bombardier C-series.

But now that it's called an Airbus, pilots no longer think it's an RJ

 

An article I read said that airbus can crank out 44 A320s a month. It takes us 10 months to refurbish one? I know we’re not a manufacturer and that these airplanes may be rode hard and put away wet and all but sheesh. 10 months? Sounds like either we’re not really interested in getting these things on line or somebody is taking a few too many trips to the ole blue room.

 

From what I heard they were just waiting until a preset target date from the bean counters, not actively wrenching on it for 10 mo

 

I forgot the CSeries was an RJ until it was taken over by Airbus! It looks like there was a JetBlue E190 that flew ANC-BUF.
From Wikipedia: "JetBlue set the record for the longest flight of the E-190 family when one of its aircraft made a non-stop flight from Anchorage, Alaska (Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport) to Buffalo, New York (Buffalo Niagara International Airport), a total of 2,694 nmi (4,989 km). This was an empty aircraft on a non-revenue flight. The aircraft eventually returned to JFK after a two-month-long charter service with Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin."

 

Um..
when was this screen shot taken?
I only ask because I don't believe we are slatted to get those Easy Jet aircraft.
Hope I'm wrong..

Motch

 

I thought the EasyJet deal went away then went firm however I could be wrong. They are CFM powered.

Cheers,
Biff

 

Yeah..not sure now.
Will tell you this- buddy in maintenance showed me a maintenance 'plan' for next summer.. for the Widebody/International stuff, last month.

Saw that HAM was going to a 76-3, and was glad, as I think MUC is going to the 78.
Now, we find out that we are cancelling HAM!
Bummer.

While it looks great to say 'see, the spreadsheet shows growth of 44 more Airbus', the reality is- until the company announces a firm deal, it means nothing. When, and ONLY When.. the metal is sitting on the ramp, will I get truly excited.

Wasn't it a year ago that both the company and the union came out and said they were 'planning' on hiring over 1200 pilots in 2018, for a bunch of used Airbuses that were coming our way?!
(Ex Air Berlin birds that Lufty was suppose to get to keep out of the hands of EasyJet, and then they would get them to us.)


All I know is, when you look at the SLI award you see that the most junior pilot was JY at 12155.
Now the most junior pilot on the Jan Staffing is AB at 12542 (LAX 756 FO).

So, basically we have grown less than 400 pilots over 6 years?!

FS, FP & FTC
Motch