I’ve said the same thing. Overall, it was a good match. Sleeves completely missed my point, which was their merger committee hung them out to dry, leading to long term heartburn. I wish our ALPA brothers at Spirit and Frontier well.

While not the end-all be-all, wasn’t reducing CASM a significant driver behind UAL’s huge narrowbody order?

I get it—UAL would be unwise to try to compete with ULCCs purely on cost—but as I understand it Kirby has placed more emphasis on getting CASM down. I reckon this is a good news story for UAL’s long-term health.

Widebodies have lower CASM than narrowbodies.

I'm pretty sure those narrowbodies are to replace express lift that can't be staffed until United and everybody else stops hiring.

FIFY.......

I could be wrong, but as I understand it, it’s the other way around—UAL is reducing its use of UAX because it is upgauging by buying all those narrow bodies. Either way, the policy seems sound—a full 737 should have a lower CASM than an RJ on the same route (much like, as Andy noted in a post above, widebodies have lower CASMs than narrowbodies).

The good news about narrowbodies is that, during a downturn, they can still be redeployed effectively. With limited international and/or business travel (also as noted in another post above), widebodies can quickly become really expensive paperweights.

Regarding staffing, one does wonder how they’ll be able to staff their jets.

I’m LCAL and I love my LUAL and post merger hire brothers and sisters. Nothing is fair, and we both had our share of jerks, but we’re one airline and better for it.

The new deliveries of the Max and NEO will make the NB fleet much more efficient. The Max8 holds 166 pax (16 first class seats) and only burns 4.6. The Max 9 burns just a little more, and the NEO will supposedly produce similar numbers. UAL can burn a little more fuel and carry almost 100 more seats than the biggest RJ. I was sure that Kirby would order something like the A220 to replace the regional lift, but it could be that a Max/NEO fleet could do the job without the added cost of adding a fleet type. A few 550’s, the existing 170/175’s, and everything else mainline could turn out to be a drastically improved product.

Spot on. There are much bigger things to worry about than a merger that happened a decade ago.