Additional details about the Airbus A320 Series Extended Service Goal:

Airbus Press Release (2008)

Airbus Presentation Update (2011, pages 13-19)

Parking and replacing airframes is wonderful if you like shiny new toys. But if you're tired of the last 5 years stagnation (thanks to 65 and merger related BS) then the goal needs to be more airframes, not an equivalent number. Keeping the bus's around longer will be good for all of us, but especially the junior pukes. If they get rid of them early, it will either be to appease Boeing or in a scheme to hose the pilots. They're good planes and in my experience, very reliable. More so than the guppies we used to fly. In the last year I can count the number of time I've said "ECAM" on one hand. Don't be fooled by the reliability canard. With proper spares and a little motivation on the maintenance front, they are great planes.

We need growth, we need more planes. The demand is there and a cursory glance at EmployeeRes shows it. RJs need to be scrapped and replaced by mainline frames flown by mainline pilots. UAL flies 50 seat RJs on routes up to 3 hours! What a pathetic experience for anyone over 4 feet tall and what a gyp to the employees who are constantly denied SA benefits due to sold out.

UCH has the opportunity to move forward if they choose and to compete with DAL. Or, they can continue to muddle along on the cheap and produce fancy narcissistic videos while telling wall street that all's well.
Fortunately for us, JPM knows better.

When hired, I was astonished to see the archaic color coded keyboards and idiotic commands Unimatic required. But in my view, the company was MUCH better off then. It was arcane but it worked. Operationally we were a very good airline. Now, we can't even get the minor things right. Its wonderfully ironic that "an IT company with wings" had been such a cluster on the IT front.

Competing with DAL....I guess James needs to put down the crack pipe.

As Nancy used to say to Mister T, Just Vote no.

Wow!!
 

Just looked at these links. Depending on which "Extended Warranty" you buy, the allowable life of the 320 can go 90,000 cycles and 180,000 hours!!

Put another way: 180,000 hours is 20.54 years airborne. :eek:

If you thought it creaked & popped now.....

with the A-Bus having 18K-23K cycles it's going to be a Damn while before we see 90K cycles. The same group of Controllers will be used for the A350 and to re-train and go through a LOT of changes would not be all that wise and even the Leadership at CAL know that,(since that's all there seems to BE these days) Rumour has it that Airbus is in the Hots to get us the A350 in hopes we'll then want the A380.( per John Laehy at Airbus) That's a pipe-dream at best. The A350-900 or -1000 is touted to replace the B747. That too is up for speculation I would NOT place that in any factor for you guys to debate.
Get your Contract!! It's LONG overdue! and Get some Money with it!!
Good Luck to you all ...