They're not looking for a replacement, just to start disguising the 75s like guppies.

United Moves Forward with 757 Scimitar Winglets Installation

United Moves Forward with 757 Scimitar Winglets Installation

Scimitar winglets are expected to be making an appearance on United’s 757 fleet. The project, which is expected to commence in January, follows United’s swift adoption of the technology on its current fleet of Boeing 737-700/800/900 aircraft.



The airline will be the first US carrier to outfit these new winglets on the 757 fleet. United currently operates the 757s on various routes, primarily out of Washington Dulles, Newark Liberty, and Chicago O’Hare. United also utilizes the 757-200 on its Premium Service flights from Newark to San Francisco and Los Angeles.

No word yet on the future of United’s fleet of Boeing 757-300s, which were inherited from ATA and Continental. These variants of the 757 are already fitted with blended winglets.

United’s fleet upgrades are expected to start with ship number 103 in January, with ship numbers 101 and 102 to follow.

The winglets will be installed by Aviation Partners Boeing.

This post was originally published on IGF Travel Channel, an AirlineGeeks.com partner.

 

Funny the pic in the background (in the article) is a 737....

If true, this would seem to put to bed any rumors that the 756 fleet might be retired any time soon.

 

Only rolls powered 757's will be getting the scimitars per mx in ORD.

 

I Can't believe the fuel savings from adding this little droop tip would offset the cost of installation and downtime, especially considering the remaining lifespan of the airframe. I smell a brother in law rat, or just a bogus story. Usually the company makes some fan fare announcement about this kind of stuff.. Believe it when I see it.

 

Here's a hypothetical:

Trans Atlantic route where market supports a 757. Not enough pax to justify a 767-300.

Problem: sometimes headwinds mean a fuel diversion westbound.

Potential solution: someone crunches the numbers, and says the curb-feelers will save X amount of pounds of gas, cutting number of tech-stops to drop to Y.

Wingtip mods are expensive. But so are unplanned diversions, where fuel is higher priced, connections are missed, sometimes United has to put people up in a hotel, or the crew times out.

Just a theory.

 

If we do this, it guarantees that the 757s will be retired in the very near future.

Joe

 

Or you you could just do like DL does and hand it off to your code share partner

 

I'm not following your logic

 

There is a long history at UAL of a management team upgrading aircraft and then then changing their mind and parking them a year or two (or months) later.

If this had not happened so many times it wouldn't be a thing.

 

parking is probably not the right term... selling to our cargo brethren and/or low cost competitors... they get the updated planes for pennies on the dollar and then beat us over our nuggets.