Dave Fitzgerald

Thread drift.

You all know, I fly the 757, and have a lot of experience in them, as well as having seen a few fleets retire in the past. The argument is usually made just before they retire, how old and unreliable they are. That is because they quite paying for regular maintenance.

In the 757's case, Glen quit paying for everything in 2003. Updates being a large shortcoming. In many cases the planes were so far out of step with the industry, we can't get parts anymore. EG. the old C-band radars, (even though it is a better WX radar than X,) about a dozen planes still have them. That is not an excuse, but an economic reality and a legitimate case for retirement.

The projected 757 fleet size should be adequate to fly into the marginal performance airports and Hawaii plus PS. It's just that we don't have enough Guppies to cover the domestic parts of the 757 schedule yet and recover the RJ markets. I would expect that the Guppies will not be blocking empty seats forever. I know BOS station hates them on BOS-SFO.

All that aside, if the fleet reductions were being done on a logical basis, I would agree with the reduction plans. HOWEVER.....THAT IS NOT BEING DONE!!

UAL's oldest plane is now 757 502UA delivered in early 1989. It is currently configured as a PS plane. For those who don't know, PS, or Premium Service is exclusively 757 service SFO-JFK-LAX. That's it, 3 airports to service high paying mileage plus customers. 'Ol #2 has all the updates, and winglets with the new interior. It is reliable and a good flying straight plane. Amazing when something is maintained.

So much for the arguments on retire the ratty old UAL planes....all it takes in money to properly maintain the aircraft. What we have has not been properly maintained. Also, if you check the production dates on many CO 757's, they are just as old as the UAL planes. CO might have sucked to work for, but at least they maintained and updated their equipment while we were stuck with Glen fattening his bonus checks.

HotPot

Good post Dave.

Sunvox

I am personally aware of 2 segments that have frequent seat restrictions on the 737 with as many as 40 seats being left empty. Obviously very different depending on which 737 is used.

LAX - HNL
BOS - SFO

United's IDB Nightmare

Toddnel

I can see that with HNL given the ETOPs/alternate issues and required fuel but BOS would surprise me unless a -900 (non-ER) was stuck on that route. There are routes that will never work for the 737, I assume that's why there will be some 757's sticking around.

IADBLRJ41

Getting back to the vacancy for a minute.... Is it safe to say that most of the Captain upgrades on the 737 will come out of the 67T FO's and 777's FO's?

cadetdrivr

That would be my guess, if only for the typical career path of a major airline pilot:

narrowbody FO==>widebody FO==>narrowbody CA==>widebody CA

IADBLRJ41

I agree will wait for the snapshots

GoCats67

A vast majority will be from one of those two seats. We will prob see a few more junior 76 CA and 320 CA jump over to improve their quality of life and prob also get some of the more senior 320 FO going for the pay raise as anyone that holds the bid will be able to hold a line as 737 CA in EWR

Toddnel

I can tell you that in EWR there are very few 777 FO's who take 737 Captain. A lot of us won't take the left seat again until it's on a bigger airplane or better schedule.

GoCats67

I am going to set the over/under as seniority 6800 for junior EWR 737 CA bid award on this bid.