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.

Must be rightsizing for another merger!

I will have to see them enter this proposed maintenance before I believe this. Airbus pay rates are jumping pretty high and I believe it's a head fake to get guys to buy off on a poor TA. Don't trust the head shed.

Does anyone know the lifespan of the airframe of the bus vs Boeing?

The Bus rates aren't any different than the 737's that are coming on property, so what different does it make?

I flew some of the oldest A320's a couple of years ago in SE Asia. Numbers 300-311. They were 20 years old, but not a lot of hours. 28,000-30,000. A third of the hours they would have had at an efficiently run airline. They were complete junk, but part of that was the maintenance. Lots of airframe vibration above 300 knots, and the LG felt like it was held on by bailing wire.

I don't know how much of this was bad maintenance or bad airplanes. Last UAL one I flew was just over 4 years ago and they seemed fine although the number of MEL's was rapidly increasing.

I really don't know the maintenance side of the industry so I don't know how long they will last or how much it costs to keep them going.

You all keep calling it a "head fake" on the raising of the bus pay rates. If you go back to the original rates the bus was well above UALs 737 and just shy of the 767. I believe the amount was about $10 less than the combined 767 757 UAL rate prior to the BK give away.

What this means is they are returning to where they should be since the bus pilots took the biggest hit in pay during BK.

Doing a quick search on-line, the 737 has been tested for 60 or 75,000 cycles (depending on Classic or NG); the A-320 is 48,000 cycles and 60,000 hours.

I did a paper on airframe fatigue for a Master's class 20 years ago (:eek:). At the time, there had been three notable fatigue-incidents, of which the Aloha 737 was the most famous, as well as the United 747 that lost the forward cargo door (and tore off significant skin when it departed; 6 died).

Boeing at that time maintained that their airplanes had an unlimited life. While there were recommended cycle limits, they were not compulsory. It merely meant that if you went beyond those recommendations, it was likely to cost more money to keep it airworthy.

I found a reference (back then) that showed the cycle/hour comparisons for the 727, 737, and 747. The hour to cycle ratios were proportional to the type of flying each was anticipated to fly. The 737 was lots of cycles, short trips. The 747 was given more hours, but fewer cycles---indicative of long-haul international flying.

Interestingly, the SWA 737 that blew out the cabin a few years ago had only achieved one-third the expected cycles. There is significant concern that the cycle testing (typically done using only a fuselage shell mounted in a test rig) does not realistically simulate revenue service. No hard landings, no twisting/torsion due to turbulence, no spilled sodas seeping into the lap-joints, no being parked in a humid environment for days on end, no catering truck dings, no jetway dings, etc.

I would guess the Airbus limits are similar.

In military service, other than being made obsolete by new threat technologies, one of the biggest factors 20 years ago leading to airframe retirement was not the airframe per se....it was wiring. It seems that in the late 1970s/early 80s, a new wire insulation called Kapton became all the vogue.

Unfortunately, it turned out to have a limited life, especially in salt environments. Lots of Naval aircraft were grounded because the wiring was shot, and it was cost-prohibitive to replace the entire wire harness of a fighter.

I can't help but wonder if the Bus, with a fuselage designed three decades after the 737, has a better method of routing wire bundles, that would make it easier to replace, if necessary.

When you see someone flying a restored WWII fighter, and knowing all the yank and bank it has been through, years of neglect, corrosion, and restoration, it makes me believe that with good maintenance, one can keep an airplane flying almost indefinitely.

Interesting post & great discussion (mostly because it hasn't devolved into Boeing vs. Airbus - yet...)

Do any NW or US types have an input? I believe their buses are the oldest.

OpSpec D-485 lists every airplane by 'N" number and type. It shows the manufacture date of the airframe and the date it enters the Aging Aircraft Inspection and component retirement plan.

You can find all our OpSpecs on the CAL Flight Operations website under "Communications" and then E-Documents. It fits in to your iPad's iBooks nicely.

One of the CAL purchase agreement covenants with Boeing is that we only operate the aircraft 20 years and then we cut it up. Boeing wants to sell new airplanes. Take a look at the airplanes older than 20 years. They are all UAL, Inc. airplanes.

An airplane retirement schedule is sitting on Jeff's desk. You can bet "The J's" have seen it. Kind of makes sense why Pierce isn't in a big hurry and Heppner is.

Do the math, then you decide.

Airbus recently came out with an extended life cycle program for the 320 series which is probably the reason that UCH is re-thinking the timeline. Prior to this the hour/cycle restriction on the 320 was a hard limit and the reason for the "disposable aircraft" moniker. There was a running change during production so only 320's built after a certain serial number are eligible for the extension. This is presumably the reason that DAL is retiring their oldest 40 (or so) Airbuses as they time out but retaining the rest. All of UAL's should be eligible for the program based on delivery dates.

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 ...