dcsnowwake

Well headwinds and everything made us divert. Sitting here at Stewart Field currently.....hate transatlantic 757s definitely swearing them off!

Beerman92

Ugh. I've been too busy loving all of the changes from the PSS that I forgot about this other change I'm going to love.

HSmartt

I kind of thought I would avoid them as a 757 just seems weird for trans atlantic, but your post seals the deal!!! THAT IS JUST AWFUL!!! Where is the fuel stop exactly? Yikes!!! I really like the IAD-AMS route idea though.

Beerman92

Well I don't know what PMCO's frequency was for plane swaps but PMUA's frequency was higher than I would have preferred. So even avoiding the 757s may not be possible. Hopefully we are still several years away from the plane swap issue thanks to crew requirements.

dcsnowwake

I want my 777 and 767s back

RobOnLI

Nothing new here except most TransAtlantic 757's stop in Goose Bay, Canada for refueling. You guys actually made it to SWF. Impressive

-RM

craz

or that the 1st Capt that took the new Mileage #s to heart and took on less fuel. (only joking)

TA

Would you rather have 757 service AMS-IAD that once in a while gets diverted, or no service because there aren't enough 767s to do that?

Beerman92

Would you rather eat dog poop or cat poop? Neither choice is acceptable.

I'd prefer that management had enough strategic planning capabilities to own the proper planes for the routes it flies and plans to own the proper planes for the routes it plans to fly.

scosprey

Or they could do the right thing and install appropriate "belly" tanks to give the 75s the range they need for these TATL routes!

halls120

Well, of course, there were enough 767s before PMCO took over.

Once the ghetto birds get reconfigured, some of them need to be put on IAD-AMS and IAD-CDG.

Alpha Golf

Sigh.

At what point did they tell you? Now totally stressing out about 133.

TA

Love the analogy.

But when all you have in the short term are dog poop or cat poop, I'm going to at least eat poop on a non-stop across the Atlantic.

I might as well suggest to you to buy a new car to get you to work, because your current car only just has enough gas range for your commute if there's no traffic, at a time when you're behind on your mortgage, about to go unemployed, and have another kid on the way... Or your other option is not to drive to work (sarcastic ha ha).



Just to put your well-advised long-term strategy in perspective though -- I don't think the shortage is strategic planning capability. You'll find plenty of that. The constraint is $, as always. I think most airline planners "go to war with the army you have", to quote Mr. Rumsfeld. I'm sure we'd all like them to buy lots of 777s to serve such routes, but what they have are 757s, and want to get the most out of them. So they fly routes that they expect will be profitable and work most of the time.

Even if they did acquire a better fleet to serve this route in particular, I bet you would find them pushing the limits on some new, other route that was profitable. It's not a fleet issue, it's about maximizing your resources -- and maybe a strategic approach, that will probably not fundamentally go away with different planes.

Beerman92

Well at least you are honest about being willing to eat the poop UA likes to feed its pax

As to resource optimization, just because a resource can sometimes accomplish something doesn't mean you should put it to that use. In an industry where reliability is an extremely important element of the purchasing decision having your planes sometimes make it almost but not quite between point A and B is a negative.

And UA does have more 767 and 777 (I think) available to fly international but they are currently configured as 2 class and fly domestic and to HI. If they are all about resources being optimized maybe they should look there.

Alpha Golf

The 75s are two-class too (though admittedly BF).