Speculation: What's happening with the planes scheduled to fly to China?
 

When I booked AC739 08FEB and AC756 17FEB a few months ago, both flights were operated by a 787. Not long after booking, AC739 was switched to a Lion and AC756 was switched to a 767.

Any speculation/thoughts/ideas on what AC is planning on doing with the planes that were scheduled to fly to PEK and PVG? I can't believe that they will just be parked.

I'm not sure even 2 months would be enough time for a comprehensive flight schedule change.

Nor would the AC maintenance bays (or contracted bays) have capacity to reschedule or accelerated any overhauling in that kind of time frame.

Thus mostly idle unless but able to handle one-off needs of the occasional unserviceable bird.

Appears a regular lion route is now being flown by other 330s? At least looking at yyz-yyc this AM. I wonder if this allows them some spare capacity and start the refit of at least one? Maybe get ahead of some additional checks and maintenance on the rest of the fleet that had been stretched pretty thin with sub-ins?

Not sure if related, but this morning at YYC, there were a 330 and a 773. Presumably plus the 763 from/to NRT?

Wishful thinking perhaps, but I'd love to see a 787/777 replace the 763 that's currently operating AC824/825.

Speculation (but unlikely): Clean them?

The 77W goes to YYZ and FRA. NRT is seasonal and won't return till late March. 333/763 goes to YYZ and also OGG.

They may also switch YYC-LHR back to 788/789 from 763 which was a Feb. only thing. I can't tell if that was capacity driven or due to a lack of aircraft. LHR is usually 789 in summer, with some 788 in winter.

Best case, we may see less 763 rouge flying domestic trunks. That'd be nice.

Just noticed the daily YVR-OGG/HNL flight is now showing 789 service starting May 1 thru to July. No Omni, no rouge, which pleasantly surprised me. Perhaps due to the China cancellations. (Starting July 1 it's showing MAX8. Yeah, right :rolleyes:)

So many options with such slack in the 789 fleet - there are 10 frames that are not being used for China flying. It seems likely that all or part of the schedule will not resume at the end of February. It would be great if AC could accelerate the A330's refurbs and reduce the Rouge and Mainline 767 flying (especially transcon).

Reducing 767 flying domestically, that's easier. But accelerating refurbishments or other maintenance, not so easy. You can't just call up the MRO and say "hey, we're sending the plane tomorrow instead of two months from now". You have to have the space available at the MRO, then you also need to have the seats and any other equipment ready and available. Lead time on some of these things is substantial, and they may well not be available.

Even to the extent that's possible, there are also dozens of other airlines that suddenly have a bunch of spare frames sitting around who may be interested in doing the same.

So it's not impossible, but I wouldn't expect much.

Personally I expect that they'll remain generated and ready for sorties just like any other normal not-programmed-for-maintenance aircraft in the AC fleet, and it will be a bit less stressful for AC maintenance/cleaning crews because they won't have everything crammed into as tight of a turn-around. And easier IRROPs recovery during the annual mid-late winter IRROPs debacle.

Doubt they'll get re-assigned to much of anything else. Its not like AC won't want to resume service very quickly once the Chinese situation stabilizes.

They might do some flight consolidation and subbing in for narrow bodies to give the 320 fleet a bit of a breather and extend their life for when the flights to China resume.

They've already substituted widebodies in for narrowbodies on a lot of routes ever since the MAX first went offline. Limited scope to do more of that without really hurting frequencies.

Yes, please. Replacing the early morning Rouge 763 from YYZ to YVR would be ideal.

Perhaps I am biased in that I am booked on the Rouge pumpkin in the last week of February.

In the event that improving my customer experience is not sufficient motivation for the route planning people, it would free up a Rouge 763 that could be used to backup the over committed 763 fleet to better handle Rouge IROP.

ewww id rather fly KLM than flying a 763 on that route lol

AC791 YYZ-LAX 787 has been replaced with a mainline 763 starting next week. 787s in short supply?

KLM is not putting me in J.

Yes please deploy the China aircraft in all routes that passengers currently suffer at the hands of both mainline and rouge 763s

Curious about those 10 787s that will be dormiant. I assume some will be replacing the older 333s and 763s that have water issues sometimes. Especially the 763s that don’t even have sensors and require touching those knobs that are probably never cleaned.

If we're lucky, it'll speed up wifi installation.

Years ago I voted with my wallet and rarely fly AC anymore. However one flight I occasionally take (as there are no alternatives) is AC868 - the daytime flight from YYZ-LHR. This flight is going to be cancelled for most of Feb/Mar/April apparently due to equipment shortages resulting from the MAX issues. Indeed I believe today may be the last day it operates for a while.

Would certainly be nice to have it back - although most unlikely I'd imagine given the uncertainty of the length of the China cancellations. Whenever they do bring it back one small suggestion would be that a pax paying $5K+ for a 7 hour flight actually get their choice of meal - frequently doesn't happen on 868.

It is quite interesting how they can't really make significant changes to the schedules with all these planes that were slated to go to China. I guess it would be far too costly and difficult to make adjustments to the schedule so that they can be used more frequently.

Seems like the logical thing to do, but airline schedules are not really subject to (significant) change.

Unlikely they will put it back into the schedule as it would require a fair number of short notice bookings to fill the plane, especially the back. It sure would help the YYZ-LHR prices though, they have been pretty high lately.

I expect some of the 789s will be integrated into existing schedules, allowing for deferred maintenance of some overworked planes. There may be up gauging of airframes on certain routes, but AC bean counters will balance that against the current high yields they're getting. Some of the 789s may indeed be subject to maintenance themselves, and/or wifi installation, and/or repainting to the 'new' livery'. It's a fair bet that few, if any, of them will be 'sitting dormant' while China routes are suspended.

One important item to remember: none of the individual planes in AC's fleet are assigned to a specific route. Any of the Dreamliners could be used to fly to Asia then Australia then Europe and within North America in any given week.

It's closer to 7 frames that have been freed up.
YVR-PVG/PEK is roughly 1.1 frames/day/route.
Central Canada - China would be about 1.3 frames/day/route.
Montreal - PVG wasn't daily was it?

OTP should improve on the remaining routes as the planes aren't being run ragged with minimum turn times.

Boeing might be the big winner here.
I suspect they won't have to pay Max compensation when governments have banned flying to/from/within China.
Thereby freeing up planes to operate routes the max otherwise would have flown.

Stored away from ice (read: salt) and with suitable lubing up, several months of idle time will cost little more than financing interest. It's hours and cycles that cost;, fire extinguishers and bandaids that expire based on the calendar are cheap.

It could easily be months to get space in a maintenance hangar, or expected parts on the shelf.

There's a few things that aren't likely in this post. Airplanes are not exposed to salt or any other chloride-based product on icy surfaces. I can't think of a Canadian airport nor any Dreamliner destination that uses (or requires the use of) salt. Potassium Acetate and Sodium Formate are used for surface anti/deicing and are non-corrosive.

Several months of an idle Boeing 787 would cost its owner millions of dollars per frame. Don't be fooled into believing that any airline is saving money by parking its airplanes.

It may take months to book a slot at a third-party MRO shop, yes. None of the 787 fleet require such attention yet. Air Canada is able to perform any and all required routine 787 maintenance in-house at this stage of their operating lives. They hold the ability to schedule and prioritize their maintenance schedule as they see fit. Boeing may have dropped the ball on a number of fronts, but they still provide rapid customer service for any and all Dreamliner parts, assuming AC doesn't already stock a needed item in YYZ/YVR/YUL. AC could expect overnight parts delivery to any airport in Canada south of 60.

the AC market is only so big. They only need so many seats. They can only sell so many in the next couple of months, which is the context at hand.

Parts that you keep on hand because they break and parts you will need on a fixed schedule are different things. Either way the in-house hangars have aircraft in them, now, in a million pieces. It would take time to so much as clean up th floorspace, let alone put a functional aircraft back on the ramp if they wanted to accelerate the 787 checks.

I've said previously that I don't know what the company plans are for the 'excess' airplanes, but the AC market as you term it has been constrained since March. Demand for seats has often outstripped supply, so I wouldn't be at all surprised to see some relief enter the market in terms of reinstating suspended routes or relieving smaller aircraft. As I mentioned, this will be a bean counter exercise, the results of which we shall have to wait to see.

You've lost me here, as I'm not sure which AC hangars are occupied by aircraft in "a million pieces". Nor am I sure why the airline would want to accelerate 787 checks. Perhaps you could help me understand.

I'm suggesting that the aircraft will, short of rescue flights, be idle for a few months because anything else would be harder. You proposed that that would be expensive (maybe, so? So would anything else) and thus they would go into AC shops for some (early) maintenance (with parts on the shelf).

An aircraft capable of flying across the Pacific isn't going to economically help on the domestic MAX/32x type routes that have issues.

Parked they may make bankers happy, but do nothing for the machinest union.

Could they fly these aircraft on routes operated by different aircraft, and send those ones to have new seats or wifi installed?

If there is an empty hanger, with idle workers and a warehouse of seats and access points, yes. But, for example, a hanger (and associated work force) is scheduled to be May 1, and parts have been ordered to arrive on May 1, there may be no opportunity just sneak it in for a quick job.

I recall back in 2011 during Japan tsunami, AC1 was downgraded from 77W to 333, and the freed up 77W was deployed to an European 333 route, MUC IIRC.

I expect certain 763/788/789 routes to be up-gauged.

I wonder what AC's excuse for delaying the deflategate fixes will be, now? They have some number of the core planes that are impacted by the deflated seats, sitting idle .... surely getting the J seats replaced (fixed) on those planes should be a priority.

My whole point in starting this thread was to see if anyone thinks that AC will replace a 333 Lion and 763 on the YYZ-SFO route where a 787 was originally scheduled. If you have to park a plane, wouldn't it make more sense to park an older, less efficient frame like a 333 or 763 than a 787? I keep checking, but so far they haven't changed anything.

It's very difficult to predict that certain aircraft type will be deployed on certain route. Aircraft type can change at last minute for operational reasons.

And, everyone here on FT can THINK AC will deploy 787 to SFO, but unless AC think the same, it doesn't mean anything.

As I pointed out in post 11, and RangerNS reiterated in post 33, it's not that simple. You need to have the parts available, and the space at a facility to do the work. Has the DeflateGate fix even been certified yet, or is AC still just replacing damaged bladders with new or repaired copies of the old (flawed) design? If the new design hasn't even been certified, having a bunch of planes grounded does nothing.

Even if the new design has been approved, who knows on what schedule Collins was manufacturing them. Again, if the new bladders were ordered for June, or October, or whenever, AC can't just pull them off the shelf tomorrow and throw them in a plane.

Same with 333 refurbishments. Or any other maintenance work.

And if the parts are ready, you still need time and space to install them. New bladders, AC can probably do that in-house in very little time. But most things require space at an MRO, which you can't necessarily get overnight.

Your question is logical, but there's simply no guarantee what AC will do. A 789 may be more fuel efficient on a per seat basis than a 763, but it also has a lot more seats, so it may not actually be cheaper to fly it. If AC is confident it can sell those extra seats and upgauges the flight far enough in advance, it may be a good trade. But if you're making the equipment swap today for a flight tomorrow, or even in a week, how many extra seats are you going to sell on such short notice?

The one thing I think we can say with pretty high confidence is this should reduce the number of extreme mechanical-related delays since AC will have some spare metal lying around.

Which rescue flights are you referring to? Air Canada is not participating in any.
Subbing a different aircraft onto a route is not difficult. There are a lot of factors to consider (availability of crews for example), but that's what the large scheduling departments of airlines like AC do on a daily, dynamic basis. You can swap a 787 in place of another type as soon as, well, right now.
Airlines don't do early maintenance. They do it on a scheduled basis, or sooner if required. Doing early maintenance makes no sense on a cost or efficiency basis.
Parked assets do not make bankers happy; they do the exact opposite. An aircraft is acquired to generate revenue, which it doesn't do while on the ground.

Yes, I get that .... and no, I'm not sure that we've heard if the replacement seat bladders were even approved yet - but my inclination (albeit with limited evidence) was that the key blocker for now was the availability of the aircraft, given the MAX problem has strained overall capacity. If I happen to be right (just this once :)), then the China situation may make it possible to accelerate the seat installation timeline.

Sure, but .... we're talking about seat bladders, not engine turbine blades. Yes, it's got to be done correctly, but they could literally do it seat by seat, and if they only have time to fix 3 seats on a particular plane, then that's still progress and the plane would still be operational ... they don't have to complete the entire process in a single night.