CRJJ

I’d love to understand AA’s mentality seriously. This is gonna backfire for sure

Archiee

If there is a decision to be made with a right choice and a wrong choice aa will always make the wrong choice.
See the stock buybacks, parking of the 330s and 757/767 fleet, furloughs during covid and the lastest Vasu Bookings fiasco. All those were clearly the wrong and bad choices and AA enthusiastically made them.

AA is like that guy that went all in on betamax during the VHS/betamax format wars.

Margaritaville

So tell us how was working at UsAir? Lol

I won't say AA makes all good decisions but saying they will always make the wrong decision is a bit hyperbolic.

Also I'll bet 60-70% of the guys here have no idea what you're talking about with Betamax lol.

Archiee

What major decision has been made in the last 10 years that was good move?

Oh I also forgot about the a350 cancellation, you know the plane they helped design and even had a sim already installed for. Good thing those 787s are ontime and ready to go.

JulesWinfield

Revamping the fleet and getting max leverage when debt and airplanes were cheap seems like it was actually a genius move. They’ve had a lot of Ls lately. The operational reliability has been in the toilet.

Archiee

I would say that was more luck than anything.

Needabetterjob

I’ve been hearing rumours classes will be starting Sept or October. Obviously by the hotel van driver and the envoy wheelchair people in MIA

Name User

US Airways ordered a next gen 330 before the 350 was even on the drawing table back in 2005 ten years before the first one was even delivered, it ended up being not what they wanted and they gladly walked away from it. IIRC it even cost them $50m to do so, that is how badly they fit our (AA's) new route network. Their order was actually converted to the A350 when it dropped.

Airlines have ordered 50% more 787s vs 350s, clearly something is better about it.

AA parked the 767s and received top notch dollar on the trade-in selling them at peak cargo prices instead of dropping $20m a copy into each one to revamp their interiors, and got a sweetheart deal on the 787-8s with airframe life of 30+ years.

We also ordered all the 737MAX aircraft with two AOAs (what caused the two MCAS issues) and all our Airbii with the tried and true CFMs vs the geared LEAPs which are being parked left and right and killing Spirit and jetBlue's future plans.

IMO we made a good decision by firing Kirby, who talks a big game but that's about as far as it goes. Oscar was who put UA on the path where they are now.

tallpilot

The 350 is more comparable to a 777. The 787 is more of a 767-300/400 replacement as is the 330 NEO. But yes, something is certainly making the 787 sell like hotcakes.

We did get very lucky ordering CEO Airbii and Leap NEOs instead of P&W GTF. Although it seems like we're heavy on older less efficient engines in our largest in the world narrow body Airbus fleet.

Name User

Yeah, Boeing's marketing team realized that the future would be more aligned with longer, thinner direct flights vs massive widebodies going hub to hub.

The 787-8 is quite a bit heavier than the 767 due to the internal structure and fuel tank requirements, which hurts its ability to compete on closer in <10 hour flights. It's slightly larger than our old 767-300's. Keeping the 767-300's around just wasn't financially prudent however.

Personal opinion but I don't think we got "lucky", I think it was a measured approach that went back 30 years to when the tech first initially came out, and they saw the drawbacks from back then and didn't trust the new tech to overcome the issues that existed back then.

Of course, it literally could've been a coin toss too.