Hallelujah! Fleet Growth!!
 

I know not all folks have had the same career path, but for me and many others like me there has been no growth for more than a decade so this is a welcome change. Drum roll please . . .

United Airlines announces 2015 Fleet Plan

Year end 2014 = 691 planes
Year end 2015 = 712 planes

Growth = 21 planes or 3%

Can I get an "Amen!"

I know you'll believe it when you see it but that's ok 'cuz nothing can make me stop smiling right now :D


Here's the breakdown by fleet:

B747 = 23 to 21 or (2)
B777 = 74 to 74 or 0
B787 = 14 to 25 or 11
B767 = 51 to 51 or 0
B757 = 94 to 81 or (13)
B737 = 283 to 308 or 25
A320 = 152 to 152 or 0

Total = 691 to 721 = 21



And just for a little icing on the cake,

UAL Express Fleet plan

Total = 566 to 503 = again drum roll please -63 RJS!!!!!

Nice! Congrats. Plus you guys have a bunch of retirements so hear's a toast to your career progression!

That's great stuff. Thanks for posting!

And, I forgot the supporting data :D how careless of me!



http://i927.photobucket.com/albums/a...psnqgb92f2.jpg

That is interesting. We are still losing 757's. I had thought they were keeping the rest. Also, parking crj700's and q400's! Both somewhat new a/c, mgt. Must really like the emb175!! They are probably salivating at getting the 195 at express. I am sure there is a team staying up late thinking of ways to screw us out of that flying. Good to see more for me and you!

195's are the buffer between parking 319's/700's or not. How much do we value our career?

Not keeping the rest of the LUAL 757's, but keeping more than originally planned.

Yeah, you guys keep patting yourselves on the back for that.... but the truth is ALPA sold E175s out to UAX in exchange for 50 seat aircraft that were on their way out the door regardless.

The E175's should be at mainline, but ALPA thinks that kind of flying is beneath you.

Interesting, and positive: they are keeping ALL the 767-300s. I had heard a low number of 14, and high of 32. By my math, I think it is 35: they show 51 total, and I think there are 16 767-400s.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that means we are going to have a significantly larger number of airframes, with no increase in seat-miles flown at the mainline. That means lower aircraft utilization, and allows express to fly more RJ's before scope choke kicks in.

I do like the fact we will be flying 757s to where they are good (islands) and 763's to where they 757's are not so good(Europe). But this isn't a growth in flying, it is just a growth in airframes.

The tiny increase in ASM's is due to adding seats due to slimline seats on the narrow bodies.

Probe,
What makes you think we won't have more seat miles?

United's publicly stated plans for 2015.

Today's update shows 0-1% 1Q2015 capacity increase and 1.5-2.5% FY2015 capacity increase.
1Q2015 mainline shows .4-1.4% capacity increase; not possible to break out full year mainline capacity changes.
1Q2015 regional shows -2.7-1.7% capacity decrease.

You can find this under Investor Updates; I don't know how to post the .pdf as a link. United Continental Holdings, Inc. - Investor Relations - Investor Relations

We are not in the business of low utilization. I believe they will be used and we will have normal growth with mainline and utilization.

The little jets have lower overall costs, but larger ASM costs. This just looks like they are adjusting to overall demand. If demand drops, you care more about overall costs. If demand rises, you look at marginal costs.

.4 - 1.4 increase in ASM's is the forecast, and last year they mentioned that was only due to the installation of slimline seats.

No block hour increase, and more airframes, equals less utilization.

That's Q1's mainline increase. FY2015 is +1.5-2.5%. At the same time, regional capacity is decreasing so planned mainline growth is higher than +1.5-2.5%.

That's Q1's mainline increase. FY2015 is +1.5-2.5%. At the same time, regional capacity is decreasing so planned mainline growth is higher than +1.5-2.5%.

Numbers can be revised down, but this isn't an attempt to work around scope choke since they're already forecasting a decrease in regional capacity.

Unless these numbers are revised upwards (who knows), this is in line with what they said last year, and that it was due to the installation of slim lines seats. The are ASM increases, not block hour increases.

I think you will see block hours go up as well. One thing mgmt is keen on is capacity discipline and utilization. I guess that's two things. We aren't buying jets to less efficient and raise costs.

Then why plan to hire 700 pilots in 2015 when we only retire half of that? There's got to be some growth in there.

I'd echo the same...hiring like there's no tomorrow, but it is double the forecast retirements.

An extra 350 pilots beyond forecast is roughly 17 pilots per "growth" airplane...is that about normal staffing? I think it is.

I still wonder with a loss of 63 RJs, and a gain of 21 jets (of various sizes, but the biggest increase seems to be 737s), could it be that 737s will fly some of the bigger RJ routes? And, since the legs might be shorter than what they flew previously, the block hours could be relatively constant?

21 additional airframes is roughly a 3% increase, and that seems to dovetail with the 2.5% capacity growth figure quoted for the year.

I only looked at this quickly but it appears that we are reducing 61 RJ at 50 seats each while increasing mainline by 21 179 seat 737. So although UAL ( mainline and regional)will show relatively flat ASM growth mainline will see growth as regional routes return to the 737 and the 320. Also many of the 76T will be converted to the 756....so some of these aircraft utilization rates will not be realized until late 15 early 16.

Could be wrong only spent a few min looking.

Apparently t38 and I had similar thoughts at the same time.

"Then why plan to hire 700 pilots in 2015 when we only retire half of that? There's got to be some growth in there."

Could these large hiring numbers be an effort to counteract staffing shortages incurred by lots of training with regard to upcoming seat movement (esp. once fences come down)? Just curious...I'm a big dummy just thinking out loud.

Probably not. Training isn't new, and we've always had to have enough pilots to cover the ones in training. So its likely that we just need more because the net number of planes is increasing.

Either way you look at it, these are the good times. We are making money, hiring like crazy, and now that we've consolidated down to 4 big domestic carriers, we have less competition so more pricing power.

Lets hope our next contract rewards that and that we continue to grow and create more opportunities for everyone.

The extra aircraft and pilots would allow for growth. Lets just hope it happens. But so far, no announcement.

Putting 763's on a 757 route to Europe increases ASM's as well.

Putting a 757 to HNL on a route flown by a 738 is also ASM positive.

These two scenarios are part of the current plan.

Couldn't the low mainline ASM numbers for 1Q 2015 also be attributed to the new "seasonality" of flying? Isn't there now something like 40% capacity difference between winter and summer international flying?
If these stipulations are true then 1Q 2015 ASM would show the increases due to slimline seat installation, but then rapidly increase for 2Q and 3Q for spring and summer.

Not only that but we don't publicly announce new routes a year in advance, so there may be some of that coming out soon as well.

I believe its 25% from winter to summer, but your thought is still valid

United Just Built 14 New Planes Using Your Extra Legroom
by Wochit 1:06 mins
More passengers, fewer planes. That's the mantra of the modern airline, which is constantly working on increasing efficiency in order to increase profits. United Airlines announced on Thursday that it expects capacity growth of one-and-a-half to two-and-a-half percent on its entire fleet, with an increase of .half to one-and-a-half percent on its domestic fleet. Part of that growth will be new planes, but part of it will be made on existing ones. United's vice president and chief revenue officer Jim Compton said during the airline's earnings call on Thursday "The major driver of growth is the rollout of slim-line seats. We currently have installed these seats on more than 300 aircraft ... the impact of higher utilization will represent nearly 14 additional aircraft becoming part of our fleet without spending any additional capital."



The above was cut and pasted from a news feed today.

I think everyone has the same amount of legroom as before. The difference is the new (uncomfortable) seats don't take up as much room on the plane, thus allowing more seats. I HATE reporters reporting on aviation. They are almost always stupid...er..wrong.

JPM,

Allow me to disagree. I non rev a fair amount. The original seats on the bus, in steerage not Econ Plus, were not only significantly more comfortable than the slim line seats, they also offered much more legroom. I'm 6'3" and I really notice the difference.

They added seats. Ya they are a bit slimmer, but when you add 1 or 2 rows to the airplanes, you are going to get less legroom. Some of the 320s only got 1 row added, and some got 2 rows added. The 319s got 2 rows added.

p64g,

Yes, I am aware of the increased seating density. Likewise, I am also aware of the manic push to increase profitability and lower costs. It all boils down to GB's comment about cheap pizza and the public desire for a second helping. We routinely jam a lot of tall people into our airplanes and fly them from one coast to the next. I'm just a line puke, but I see the quality of the product suffering.

My point is that the leg room has gone to hell in steerage with the introduction of slimline (and additional) seats.

Pretty much every other airline is doing the same thing. It's the ULCC model and they seem to fill up their planes. Not as comfortable, but if it keeps my paycheck coming and increasing, so be it.

I'll also add that more seats available means a better chance of getting a seat non-rev or commuting.

Well this pretty much sums it up. In the end, as much as we'd all like to see a better product, when that consumer is on Expedia or Travelocity etc looking at airline rates, if one airline's seat is $5 less, they book on that airline. We don't have a degree of separation, or at least enough of one, with other airlines that would let us charge a premium on all the seats. So we have two sections that we charge a premium for, First Class and Econ +. That model seems to work, and everything behind the exit rows are the cheap seats.

The market drives both pricing and the product and not the other way around. It is apparently working, because despite passenger's complaints, they still fly enough that we can't get on as a non-rev much of the time.

Airline travel is a commodity. United is homogeneous with respect to other airlines (except for our network) and people tend to not see enough value between them all to pay for improved services in a meaningful way.

We have good jobs, not great ones. The passengers get good service, not great service. We make a good profit, not a great one. There isn't enough disruption in the industry to change that and I don't see it on the horizon either.

Anyone know where it's listed how many of each airframe or crews are at which bases? Might be good to know down the road if trying to end up at a specific domicile sooner rather than later.

Go to CCS, and Reports>Staffing.

Pick a base, fleet, and seat. You can see how many guys, and what seniority, are there.

It does NOT show potential incoming/outgoing though, such as through bids, bumps, new hires, etc.

No way I know of to show how many jets per base.

Under PBS, you can find how many pairings there are per bid month, by base, by fleet. That would give a good approximation.

Changing subjects:

The company has issued two separate reports on the 777-300 rumor saying "....it is an option, but we plan no incremental fleet growth...."

Given the veracity of their denial, it must mean they are buying them as we speak. :rolleyes: