Bus longevity rumor
 

El Cap just told me that he engaged in confabulation with a suit from Wacker. The suit was supposedly one of the big maint / fleet honchos.

Suit said UCAL had planned to begin parking the bus in 2015 but they have decided to schedule them for heavy maint and keep them till 2020.

Given that the planes are flying at record load factors (making tons of cash) and that we desperately need the lift, this sounds like the first good decision I've heard come out of the Willis Tower. Time will tell.

Long live the comfortable, quiet, plastic jet!

That's confabutastic! James has a sweet vocabulary. :-)

Carrot .

We will keep the airbi flying...we just need you to let us get 90 seaters at Express to remain competitive...blah, blah, blah...

This carrot won't affect my no vote. I just like to offer a contrarian opinion to "the busses are history" crowd.

In HCFR(sp) training recently, basically the same thing was put out. They start to park in 2016 w/no MX & all parked by about 2022. Conjecture was is was being studied..

How old will the buses be in 2016?

Desperately need the lift?

This makes no sense when we are parking 757's. One or the other something doesn't smell right.

The first ones showed up in either 93 or 94 (a year before my time, but that is what I recall hearing), and the newest are around 2000? Not that old, and frankly, not the maintenance disaster that they're reported to be if the airline would have mechanics and parts to work on them with...

Scott

NFLUALNFL's numbers are what we have been told at standards meetings.