WHACKMASTER

AT had less retirements on a percentage basis than SWA. I'll give you that, however AT bought 50 confirmed orders to the table on a 138 jet fleet. Do the math on that and tell me who's FOs were going to upgrade quicker. 50 orders coming to a 138 jet fleet or stagnant growth at an airline with almost 600 jets?

Bottom line, MOST of our FOs were going to upgrade quicker because of fleet growth as opposed to your FOs upgrading because of retirement numbers.

Well look on the bright side, with the flat out theft of 300 plus B737 cptn seats and the backhanded theft of even more 717 cptn seats, your FOs are going to get a healthy dose of upgrades. Can't wait to fly with one that is sitting in the left seat thanks to me giving up that position. That oughta be "interesting".

CRJAV8OR

SWA had 142 firm orders on the books prior to the AT acquisition. SWA has 350 total firm orders with Boeing between 2012-2022.

Before you cry those were ordered as replacement aircraft, I will point out that there is less than a 2 year difference in fleet average age between SWA and AT, 9.7 vs. 11.6 years.

Average Fleet Age for Selected Airlines

80ktsClamp

Those are certainly replacement aircraft. WN is shrinking it's fleet, not growing.

WHACKMASTER

At the very least MOST of those were replacement aircraft as at that time SWA had approximately 200 Classics left. NONE of ours were replacement aircraft.

WHACKMASTER

142 firm orders at the time of the acquisition and about 200 Pop-tops left over in your fleet and you're going to try and tell me that those were not going to be used as replacements? I'm not as dumb as you think.

Average fleet age was brought up for you guys because of getting a #*@*load of -700s during the 2000s decade when you guys grew so much. The fact of the matter remains that a significant portion of your fleet needs to be/needed to be replaced with new aircraft.

Our first 717 lease wasn't set to expire until 2017 with all of the 88 or so leases up by 2024. There was no urgency to replacing ANY of our fleet as they were new to middle-aged aircraft.

WHACKMASTER

I'm still waiting for someone from SWA to chime in with this zinger I once heard.........."We weren't growing because the company was saving money to buy someone".

CRJAV8OR

Please show sources for that claim. The C.E.O. has never claimed that as far as I have seen.

Here are his major points:
• Retiring 717s won’t cause furloughs of pilots or flight attendants
• The plan is to keep Southwest’s fleet constant at around 700 airplanes over the next five years, adding enough new Boeing 737s to replace more than 150 older Boeing 737 Classics that will be retired during that period.


Direct quotes from Kelly:


"That would mean that we would shrink this company, and we have absolutely no plans to do that."


“Second of all, we are retiring airplanes from our fleet. We have about 700 airplanes. Over the next five years, we’ll be retiring over 150 aircraft, and we will be buying brand-new airplanes from Boeing to replace those."


Southwest is INCREASING capacity. Aircraft being removed from the fleet seat 117-137. Those one for one replacements are for 175 seat aircraft. We are up-gauging not down-gauging.

CRJAV8OR

So, you can unequivocally state that one airlines aircraft orders are ALL growth and the others are ALL replacement when the fleet age shows less than two years difference? Please feel free to back that assertion up with facts as opposed to opinion. The point wasn't that SWA orders weren't replacements, it was that some of the AT deliveries were also. As you state, the 717's leases begin expiring in 2017. Over what time frame were the orders to be delivered?

WHACKMASTER

You need to go back and reread, Skippy.

CRJAV8OR

Why do you think I was stating average fleet ages? Why would the age of AT's fleet have anything to do with SWA replacement aircraft? I was trying to point out that both airlines would use some of those deliveries as replacement airframes. You state they are all growth airframes. If any of those deliveries were to take place after 2017 I will submit those airframes were replacement airframes for 717's leaving.