Don’t like to see that on any airframe, but especially the Bus 🥺

 

At least the new Buses are better for the passengers and the bottom line. Two birds actualy scheduled to go to MZJ (Pinal) tomorrow...one in ORD too. Both are the last in the fleet from 1994!!!

UAL is retiring very old planes, not parking. But if things really do go south in the coming year... we have scores of additional planes we could retire tomorrow. We also have HUNDREDS of planes we could park (temporarily) while simultaneously reducing fuel- and maintenance-related CASM... The key is we have the flexibility in our fleet renewal to weather the storm, so to speak.

 

There are a TON of 321Neos coming this year, at least according to that fleet tracking website on CCS+. I'm with you on that being a good thing - our old 319/320s were an awful, tired product. Get rid of them and bring on the new, efficient planes.

 

Kind of a weird way to look at it. If we’re parking HUNDREDS of planes, we’re sending THOUSANDS of pilots home too, so yes, the airline can weather a big financial storm, but “shrinking to profitability” has never been a pilot-friendly policy.

To be clear, I don’t think we’re staring down that barrel right now, but the financial indicators are worse than they’ve been in a while, & the next round of tariffs- if implemented & maintained as advertised- would almost certainly drive it further in that direction. Fortunately(?) there doesn’t seem to be a cohesive strategy so everything for the next 4 years is just wait & see.

 

Actually, after the new interiors and fresh coat of paint, they looked brand new. And yes, they “looked” new. The ‘Bus’ Achilles heel is the hydraulic system as they’ve aged. But the completion rate of the Airbus fleet is very similar, if not better that the others.

 

Right. Why are they cheering. I mean if it keeps me employed, what do I give a śhit how old the plane is I fly.

 

It's not a weird way to look at it, rather it's called contingency planning... Management does it all the time. Not suggesting that such will occur with any decent probability, just keeping the COVID-era parking in mind. "Shrinking to profitability" is a completely different concept from temporarily parking panes rather than flying empty planes and losing even more money. COVID showed that paying crews to not fly was better financially than paying them to fly empty planes.

To keep up with management, we have to learn how they think so we don't get outmaneuvered with another Tumi (or something similar)

Parking planes is about being ready to reactivate when the demand returns, not about "shrinking to profitability" by permanently giving up LAX gates, JFK slots, etc...

I didn't mean to imply any celebration in retiring old Buses, rather just underscoring the fact that today's retirements are over 30 years old.

 

Ok but remember “paying pilots not to work” was only financially viable because:

1. The feds were covering billions in losses to the airlines
2. We had agreed to take pay cuts in the event that support ran dry

If this tariff war tanks the economy, what do you think the odds are the administration is going to foot the bill? And given Trump has dissolved dozens of labor contracts this week alone, I’m less confident than ever in our contractual protections. It’s not out of the question that airline CEOs would go to the administration & complain that our “bloated labor contracts” are making it hard for them to provide “essential transportation”. An executive order would be so much easier than upholding the contract or working with the union on an agreeable path forward.

Again, I’m not saying any of this is a sure thing, it’s just a bad confluence of events when a weak economy hits in an aggressively pro-management landscape.

 

Ive had enough of 47 already . This thing is spiraling out of control and getting worse daily .
I wish he would scale back some of his policies and executive orders and focus on the economy.
I think the next year or so will be very interesting to see how all of this plays out. Experts predicting recession and weak economic growth.
We shall see .

 

Airlines have historically retired airframes right around the 30 year mark. Lots of factors go into this. 3rd heavy check happens right around 30 years and they usually find 30 years of acummulated problems when they open them up. Northwests DC9's, FedEx's 757's and, yes, United's 767-300's are the exceptions. The mid 1990's UAL A320's are probably the second least reliable fleet in the airline, after the early 1990's 767-300's. These aircraft aren't being 'parked', they are being retired. This nothing new in the Airline world.