Section Eight

As with everything else said this is all speculation, but those birds are the highest time airframes on property (for the fleet) and I here that are disliked the most (by mx). I think the door is actually a tad smaller as they were not P2F but purpose built; not sure if I heard that correctly or not.

Lots of MD11 rumors flying about, hard to say what they are up to, the system bid was a bit underwhelming for sure, retirements have slowed (probably due to the economy) and who knows what’s next. The 76 doesn’t carry what the MD does and as far as 350/77X rumors, where do they park them?

We have airplanes stacked on top of each other as it is…and they don’t fit on the wings.

Anyway, carry on…..

C2078

Parts are becoming increasingly difficult to procure, airframe MX becoming expensive, reliability not the best, easy formula for disposal. I hope I am proven wrong.

2017 hires will probably be the last to see 5 year upgrades. 2018-19 will probably see 6-7, 2020 and beyond most likely in the 7-8 range. Again, I hope I am wrong.

FTv3

Re: downsizing:

Besides this recent overbooking of early peak schedules, last I checked we weren’t exactly swimming in empty deck space. We were still leaving freight on the ramp in HKG last summer, and the incoming 76s were specifically marked as growth aircraft vs MD replacement (as I recall from some financial reporting they did). And the MD is still doing some intl work, just had a pri3 crew on my last trip. I truly think worst case for 2023 is we see a loss of a couple Pratt MDs, the effects to us will be absorbed by regular system bids and retirements. If we got 7x76s coming and potentially 2 747s with 31 retirements, we are looking at what, 100 bodies minimum needed? There will be more retirements than 31 and I’m pretty sure they are still trying to get caught up w/ staffing so I could easily see hiring up to 200 next year. Otherwise agree it will
slow from what we saw in 2022 but Boiler is correct IMO - sky isn’t falling by any means.

UPSFO4LIFE

We did run a very Small system bid in, I believe around June 2020 that befuddled many people here, so who really knows what’s going to happen.

C2078

Have you seen the amount of Asia cancellations lately? This may be volume, or the Chinese playing their games, but many retailers are saying they are overstocked with goods. Not necessarily fully applicable to us, but the sea shipping industry is definitely starting to feel the volume drop. Even when flying domestically I am noticing the payload weights lower.

Just saying things are turning fairly quickly, and the economic environment may or may not give the company enough motivation to park additionally slated planes.

threeighteen

Last summer is distant history as far as freight demand goes. It's fallen off enough to the point where FedEx is cancelling MD-11 lines and putting the 777 on domestic duty because demand for the 777 is drying up internationally.

C2078

I just looked at the MEM 777 bidpack, don’t see much if any domestic flying on it. Maybe they changed it after being published 🤷‍♂️

threeighteen

Yes the MD crews received notification of the change after the bidpacks were published (the second time). The 777 domestic flying can be found in December OT right now.. trips 3016, 3020, 3021, 3022, 3023, 3024, 3025, 3026, 3027, 3028, 3029, 3030, 3031, 3032, 3033, 3034, 3035, 3036, 3037, 3038, 3039, 3040, 3041, 3042, and many more. All of them are XTRA pairings that were originally MD pairings.

FTv3

FedEx is a different story, apples to oranges in this case, Like Amazon laying off 10K. Not going to reference them to predict our short term but worth noting.

I looked and compared payloads from
my last couple months to the various months up to a year before. I didn’t see any noticeable difference.

I’ve read about a handful of people on the B&G talking about cancellations this week. Could be a legit volume drop, Asia Covid issues, staffing and flu issues, or over agressive peak scheduling - no one here knows. No one knows the scale of it either.

tnkrdrvr

I agree about your apples to oranges. However, it looks like Asia volume may be dropping substantially. Count me among those having a trip truncated. I was doing a MKE-ANC layover and fly back trip. The ANC portion was chopped and ill commercial home instead. I’m not complaining about the paid days at home, but I want the golden goose to continue aggressively pumping out those eggs, not cooked over the fire. No, I don’t think the sky is falling, but I do think it may be a rough ride for a year or so.