GMoneyCO

That may be their public position but inside HQ I have to hope they have a different internal position. I did a quick analysis of the international and p.s. fleet of all aircraft made pre-2000 since that is the range we were discussing coming up for retirement soon/already reached.

Unfortunately you can't put a table in the forum so I'll break this out as cleanly as I can.

Retirements:
Aircraft_______Number_______Capacity_________Total Seats
747-400:________21______________374_____________7,854
772 (pre-2000) __46______________Varies___________12,774
763 (pre-2000)___30______________214_____________6,420
752 (pre-2000)___53______________Varies___________8,552

Total Lost: 35,600 seats
Total Lost ex 752: 27,048 seats

Future Additions:
Aircraft________Number______Capacity________Total Seats
787-9___________5_______________252_____________1,260
787-10__________14______________~280____________3,920
77W____________14______________366_____________5,1 24
A350-1000_______35______________~366____________12,810

Total Additions: 23,114

Excluding the 752s, that's a drop of 14.5% in widebody seat capacity in the relatively near term. Note: Entry into service dates of the aircraft that will join the fleet has not been factored into this analysis. I also did not include the 737-MAX9 orders as 752 replacements since many of the 752s do long Hawaii flights and western Europe flights which the MAX isn't a suitable replacement for.

United, reportedly, also has options for 35 additional 787s though the spec(s) the options are for are unknown

smxflyer

I imagine the 35 787 options and 40 A350 options will be closely looked at.

cerealmarketer

Oh the ways flyertalkers will search to find a single point demise for United Airlines...

Where success is determined by capacity growth rather than profit.

Of all the things we're least qualified to opine on it's fleet planning and experience placing billion+ orders for aircraft.

I have yet to see a retirement date for Delta's dozens of pre 1995 767-300s, let alone the 1995-2002 generation. Many, if not most of those will be in service in the mid 2020s.

In fact, Delta recently pushed back its next widebody deliveries to 2020 (even though it's also retiring 747s)

https://www.runwaygirlnetwork.com/20...rs-new-planes/

With a similar life, UA's 772s could be on the lot for 10 years. There's plenty of time to get orders in, and take orders from people who inevitably cancel.

If UA has learned lessons from its bankruptcy, it will do the renewal in a steady flow with several fleet types, rather than the record sized single 777/747 order Wolf did in the early 90s that over-leveraged the company.

Meanwhile, AA pushed back its A350 deliveries as well, while accelerating retirement of its 767s and A330s

http://www.thenational.ae/business/a...rican-airlines

halls120

Assuming, of course, that UA makes the same kind of maintenance investment in their fleet that DL executes. Which, given this summer's high mx cancellation rate, makes one wonder.

fly18725

What about the 12 787-8s with 2,628 seats or the 13 more 787-9 (for a total of 18) with 3,276 seats? That brings capacity to 29,018 seats added, more than the retired widebody capacity even before the expected increase in capacity for the remaining 767-300s and sUA 777-200s.

The math shows United has grown international widebody capacity post-merger, while continue the pre-merger trend of marginally shrinking domestic capacity. The domestic trend will reverse as the next phase of the fleet plan begins.

cerealmarketer

We know June was much better than last year's mess (which may in fact have been more labor than maintenance driven)

And this reporter says UA had an early July that beat DL/AA, so no evidence there.

http://www.bizjournals.com/chicago/n...-july-and.html

The last DOT with cause data was May, and there 'air carrier delays' are (2016 vs 2015):

AA: 5.40 / 5.21
Delta: 4.15 / 4.10
United: 4.80 / 7.46

https://www.transportation.gov/sites...16JulyATCR.pdf

They're all running a decent shop on that front, and UA vastly improved.

Facts are friends. UA is the only of the big 3 who has not announced a deferral of widebody deliveries. And in fact has brought some forward.

Even as all 3 announced a faster retirement of a subfleet (DL/UA 747, AA A330).

Of all the things to worry about, UA running short of widebodies is pretty low on my list.

entropy

I don't know why UA would automatically can all pre-2k aircraft, particularly 777s which have plenty of life and are plenty efficient. At least in for the coming 5-7 years.

747s sure, but the 777 is still a great aircraft.

transportprof

But UA did truncate its 787 order, and convert to 777s. This was a retrograde move on several fronts: - older technology, less fuel efficient, less comfortable.

cerealmarketer

The worry being presented was UA losing widebody capacity and purportedly on course to drastically lose capacity in short order.

In this case, they brought forward widebody deliveries - took them years sooner in the form of 777s. There was no net reduction in widebodies anticipated.

Passenger experience is a whole other conversation.

And options aren't very reliable predictors - the only reliable fleet delivery outlooks are things coming 1-2 years out, and even that is subject to change when a manufacturer has other needs. See the AA pushback of its A350.

I wouldn't be surprised if UA does some horse trading like DL and AA that results in less planned widebodies on the books.

All this goes out the window if a cycle runs its course and widebodies start flying one ways to Arizona as they did in '82, '91, '01, and '09.

REPUBLIC757

UA is in a bit of an identity crisis because CO management didn't like the idea of older planes (at risk of their newer planes and debt heavy as a result) and dumped the 757s rather quickly, and stupidly.

The 763s is a different story. Completely different operating missions, necessary to TATL, and they figured out a way to extend life in a time of low fuel prices. Granted they have to spend major bucks to get Polaris in there and reconfig the 3-class birds, but its likely very much worth it.

Recall big dumb Smisek said the 787-9 was going to replace the 763. He probably didn't look into the fleet planning aspect too much - which can be quickly realized that 1:1 the 787-9 orders could never replace the 763 at the expense of moving the TATL 752s around and expanding the network from SFO.

Sad & Rigged story about the 757s but at least the 763s are sticking around - even if they were a hair away from Smisek pulling the trigger to retirement.

fly18725

I think this is a bit of a mischaracterization. There was a strong focus on the tangible financial benefits provided by new aircraft: higher revenue through greater utilization and lower costs due to reduced fuel consumption and maintenance. Yes, new airplanes have higher ownership costs, but Continental enjoyed the lowest borrowing rates in the industry, a benefit United continues to receive today.

The financial benefit of retiring old, low-spec 757s that were at the end of their useful lives is well known and has been endlessly debated. It's pretty clear that retiring these aircraft was immediately accretive to earnings and that 2Q would look different if they'd been left in service longer.

I think there's a misconception that older aircraft need to be replaced with newer aircraft of the same capacity. Fleet planning is incredibly dynamic and the most successful airlines are constantly tweaking their strategies. There continues to be a trend of more point-to-point (perhaps, technically, hub-to-point) international routes, overflying historic TPAC and TATL gateway cities. Combined with upgauging as TATL secondary cities develop, there may be a need for fewer very large or very small international planes, with demand for more airplanes with capacity that fits in the middle.

Longboater

Unless UA was going to do extensive maintenance work on the 97 757s and refurbish them to the same standard DL did, i.e. bring the configuration up to ~200, they were done. That being said, DL is almost finished removing all pre-1992 757s from their fleet as their maintenance costs cannot justify further flying and replacing them with 739s with exact same amount of seats as the 757s they are parking.

One of the few intelligent things $mi$ek did do was extend the life of the 21 oldest 767s as they still have plenty of life left in them and can last for 5-7 more years, thus justifying installing Polaris on them.

Not every airline has a similar issue with relatively older twin engine aircraft such as the 767 or 757. AA is not pleased with the reliability of the 767, hence they are removing all but the 17 delivered in 1998-1999 and 2003.

REPUBLIC757

This isn't true - Continental had crippling amounts of debt from their bad credit rating and desire to keep up a new narrowbody fleet. As a matter of fact, there's a theory out there that they were in such deep trouble that they were headed to BK 3 but chose to save the embarrassment and merge with UA

artvandalay

I'm looking forward to a follow-up report that includes the last half of July. 869 SFO/HKG has been late more than half the time, and TPACs in general are having a rough time.

cerealmarketer

Wrong...

CO had a ratio long term debt to total assets of 0.41 just prior to the merger
UA had a ratio of 0.45 (more highly leveraged, but let's call it the same)

Both had about $3bn in cash.

https://www.united.com/web/fr/conten...l_10k_2009.pdf

http://api40.10kwizard.com/cgi/conve...=-1&pdf=1&dn=1

Both had a 'negative' credit outlook, though CO actually had a higher B-grade rating vs C-grade for UA

https://www.moodys.com/research/Mood...ade--PR_198755

Using your leverage viewpoint, pmUA was too highly leveraged with 'crippling' amounts of debt and 'headed to BK.'

CO rebuffed UA in early 2008 - in part because UA's operational house wasn't in order. And the metrics at that point show it wasn't in order.

UA then went and cleaned up its operational act - much along the old CO playbook (on-time incentives, cleaner planes) - they even had those CO-esque employee slogans.

2 years later, with the UA operational ship window dressed, CO's prior excuse had less merit and they were ready to merge.