The long range planning committee meets twice a day

I just glanced at Rainey's 3 March presentation slides from the JP Morgan Aviation Conference (united.com>investor relations>Presentations>go to most recent presentation)

Page 5 has 3 bullet points for Efficient Growth in 2015
-Adding Slimline Economy Seats
-Increasing Aircraft Utilization
-Upguaging Regional fleet


I'm not saying the information presented is accurate, but all indications are that they plan on increasing block hours. I haven't read any SSC (system scheduling committee) reports for quite a while so I don't know if there's communication between departments at United on this matter. ... ah, who am I kidding - I doubt there's communication across departments at United.

Hey Probe

Just want to make sure I understand correctly your point. Total block hours for United (mainline and regional) will remain mostly flat. Which I agree with you on that point.

However the upgauging is moving flying from large regional jets to small mainline aircraft. This would increase mainline block hours while decreases regional feed block hours.

So for the only point that matters to us...more hiring at mainline. That is the way I understand it. Block hours flat for UAL (regional +mainline) but shifting flying away from express.

7 Apr snapshot with unfilled positions:

DCA 320 FO 5 AWARDS 51 UNFILLED
DCA 737 FO 16 AWARDS 2 UNFILLED
DCA 756 FO 52 AWARDS 25 UNFILLED
EWR 737 FO 5 AWARDS 58 UNFILLED
EWR 756 FO 12 AWARDS 53 UNFILLED
IAH 320 FO 44 AWARDS 11 UNFILLED
SFO 737 FO 35 AWARDS 24 UNFILLED

The up gauging is from 50 seat express flying to 76 seat express flying. Express flying up gauging.

Yeah, slimline seats and upguaged RJ's. So far that was the only announcement for ~2% ASM grown.

Upguaging RJ's to mainline would be great, but I haven't heard that one.

I am still not sure why we are hiring so many pilots. If we need them, great. Most pilots quit another job to come here. I would hate to see UAL hire too many, only to furlough them shortly after.

Why are you so negative man? You need to cool it for the sake of our future new pilots. You are providing no proof and screaming furlough. If you are unhappy keep it to yourself.

Every 787 we take requires 40 pilots and we're taking 10 this year so that's 400. 350ish retirements.....that's 750. We're parking 752s but replacing them 1:1 with 737s. and we are chronically short staffed and need new pilots to train old pilots. I'm sure the company can find a place for 250 other pilots.

We'll see what next years fleet plan brings but I would bet growth as we are slated to keep all the rest of our frames until the A350 and 787-10 show up. Is the company not allowed to get ahead of the curve?

That's only partially correct.
On the regional side, the plan is to retire 112 aircraft in 2015 and add 49 EMB175s. That's a net loss of 63 aircraft; ~11% of the regional fleet.

Mainline is adding a net of 21 aircraft in 2015.

Spin it however you guys like, but it appears that some regional flying is moving to mainline. This is backed up by the Feb operational performance report (the most recent) showing a YOY decrease in regional RPMs but a YOY increase in mainline RPMs.

Looks like some regional to mainline upguaging with frequency reduction to me.

...gauging, gauge, etc.

Not guage...;)

Agree with Andy 100%.

:D I've been up most of the night watching the international markets.

BIG BREAKING NEWS: 10.9M bbl build in crude inventories. Great for the airline sector, not good for the energy sector. Supply continues to outstrip demand.