Are actual L-UAL airplanes going out of service, thus facilitating the merger of the fleets, or is this some kind of paper-merging of the fleets?

Split and Merged fleets
 

Most of L-UAL's 757s are being retired. This is supposedly because the cost of putting them through their next heavy maintenance visit/overhaul is prohibitive. It may have had something to do with a predecessor VP's selling of engines and spare parts, and/or cancelling long-term overhaul contracts. Cheap in the short-term; expensive in the long-term.

They are keeping 25 as I understand it. On the other hand, I think the L-UAL 767s are all being kept.

CAL's airplanes are slightly newer, and as such, are further from the next heavy mx visit. There may also have been some pre-emptive contracts put in-place to make such visits economically viable.

Supposedly, both fleets merge next year.

There are some instrumentation differences between UAL's and CAL's fleets (not sure exactly what it is). The FAA said the fleets could not be mixed until the cockpits were harmonized. Why this has taken more than 2 years is beyond me.

Isn't this also true of the 777 fleets?

It means if the crew desk is short a 756 copilot in ORD, and there is a 76T copilot available, but not a 756 copilot, the flight gets cancelled.

You would think swapping some gauges would be cheaper in the long run. Economy of scale is lost when two large, efficient fleets are split by manpower and training, making them inefficient.

I believe I read the other day that the 777 fleet finally has the same logbook procedures, which should allow them to be merged. They might still need the same flight-planning software.

Wow.

UA is keeping 29 airframes of the 76T fleet: 15 P.S. 757's and 14 76's w/ winglets in a 2 class biz first configuration.

Given this rapid reduction in the 76T fleet, should the 10 folks in my new-hire class getting assigned EWR 76T expect to be BAT-ed over to 756 relatively quickly, perhaps even before completing training?

We may see some of this plan change, I hope. There is discussion of keeping more of the 763 and more of the 752s. We will pay the expense of upgrade and heavy maintenance because higher believes that we can't afford to lose the lift in the short and long-term. I hope that this thinking prevails and it holds. While the costs will be high to take these old birds into the future it could be worth it (Think Delta and MD-90s and a better mainline fleet plan). Having the regionals suffering like they are is helping as well and is why our block hours are wanting to grow. And yes, we need to have one 756 pilots and no segmented groups. Synergies still not captured.

I'll have some of whatever you're having. That almost sounds like it makes sense and would be good for the united pilot group. Therefore it ain't gonna happen. ;)


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In the last couple of weeks I've flown 2 LUAL 757's that were in Georgia for 6 weeks doing a D check. These were planes slated to be retired. No winglets, no updates while they were there. Based on this, I have no idea what the plan actually is.

I think this issue was being planned, briefed and discussed just last week and now the who, what, where and how is starting to take place. Cross your fingers, I am, that this becomes fruition and executed. I hear ya, optimism is handled with skeptical gloves currently and rightfully so.

The B756 fleet is adding LCAs...The word is out about keeping more airplanes around for the time being than originally planned...good news indeed..

There are airplanes at my current airline that are being returned to the lessor, but have to undergo C check all the same. Something having to do with returning them in an airworthy condition. C-check is not as much $$$$ as D, but perhaps the L-UAL 757 situation is similar.