why so long?

the rumor about 330s? We could get them quick. the 330 order book is not strong

 

Good luck with getting more 321's (backed up orders), hey SK could buy NK to get them...oh, shoot somebody already tried that!. Just kidding, I'll go back to our thread.

 

we’re just going to take Spirits orders instead of Spirit.

 

Multiple outlets reporting Airbus asking clients to sell their slots so that Airbus can get United’s business

 

Why does everyone assume this is cancel one order to make a new one. Let’s just assume that Airbus can get 10-15 A321 deliveries over the next 5 years by customers who might have been looking to rework a delivery timeframe and now they can get paid for it. That’s 50-75 A321. You don’t cancel the the Max’s. You just sub out for 8’s and 9’s. The rest of the growth plan relies on keeping and doing costly maintenance on older 767,757,737, 320, and 319 until the order book catches up with the next plan. Boeing will more than likely offset the cost to keep airplanes flying via a better deal on the new airplanes. As far 350 and 330’s I would be unbelievably happy if we got them but reality is hard to get past. Adding 2 fleets types is a big expense and manpower positive for pilots but that’s a huge negative for management. The current plan of 4 fleet types (787,777,737,320) is very cost effective. The 10 day transition between 777 and 787 is huge. I think everyone expects SK to stick it to Boeing. I don’t think that will happen. Just shuffling some deck chairs and the extra aircraft that will be on the order book will just replace older airframes as they come up on the next heavy check.

 

United has had 4 fleet groundings in the last 10 years.

1- 2014 787 grounded for 6+ months due to Battery Fire.

2 - 2019 MAX grounded for MCAS for 2 years

3 - 2021 777 grounded for 18 months due to PW engines

4 - 2024 MAX grounded for plug door failure.

If I were United I wouldn’t be putting all Boeing or all Airbus in my fleet. Can you imagine if the 787 battery issue and grounding happened when we have 200 of them? It would kill us. United got SO lucky that the 777 and MAX grounding happened during COVID.

on top of all this Boeing didn’t deliver 787s for 12 months due to production build failures at Spirit and that affected delivery of 10 airplanes and now the 787 is delayed again. The 737 production has been put on ice by the FAA and the MAX10 certification is 4 years behind and counting.

i wouldn’t have said this 30 days ago…..but now I think Airbus is about to get a major portion of our WB and NB fleet orders. I would say atleast half of our future fleet.

 

anything is possible but that would be a unbelievable mindset change. Once again I am currently flying in the 737 and I’m counting down my seat lock to bid back the A320 but I would be over the moon if we get 330’s I just have a hard time imagining that. I can see us committing to the a350 with additional 321 deliveries.

 

A320 to A350 ain't exactly a marathon either. Airbus touts it at 11 days...


https://i.ibb.co/kJB7t5X/IMG-6991.jpghttps://ibb.co/sCRfZbq]https://i.ibb.co/kJB7t5X/IMG-6991.jpg[/url]



https://aircraft.airbus.com/sites/g/...eupdate_v5.pdf

 

I bet United has the clout to pull that off actually. Could pledge to keep a certain percentage of the seats basic economy and keep some court designated routes for a set timeframe. A bunch of new 320s, 321s plus the orders and pilots they need. Come on, this Spirit pilot has hope

 

I guess I’ll address the thing no one seems to want to mention. The PW engines on the NEOs. United gets those 321NEOs, they’re gonna have grounded airplanes.

Theres a chance it’ll get sorted before delivery, but Pratt (and their suppliers) is so backed up with current customers that idk if that’ll be a possibility.