kettle1

FULL ARTICLE: http://blogs.barrons.com/stockstowat...rrons&ru=yahoo

I added the (?) to this article I found under "headlines for UAL", as it could be correct, perhaps not. What "swap"? UA pilots would not fly this plane, under the current agreement, or could they? Can Express fly this plane under the current UA agreement?

Facts about this AC:
http://www.embraercommercialaviation...Ejets-190.aspx

CO_Nonrev_elite

and what would B6 be getting ?. Can we swap for 60 x E90 and give them Jeff in return ?

kettle1

Sounds like a win-win. Who would fly the planes? Jeff could possibly manage the ship at B6 - it is not as complicated as the "new UA". Of course he would remove everything B6 has going for it to save (not $2B) but only 500M.

The trade could be perfect. Jeff gets a new job, throw in all the 50 seat RJ's UA is currently flying and it would be MINT!

Duke787

This is almost as dumb as the analyst who said UA should de-hub IAD. As said above what exactly would B6 be getting in return? And why would they give up E90s? Their fleet is streamlined to be A320s, E90s, and now A321s - I can't imagine they're looking to swap to another new model just as the A321 comes online (even with it being similar to the A320s).

Further what purpose would UA have with an E90? They can't be flown by UAx because that would require them to be fitted with just 76 seats (which would lead to a lot of dead space or a huge F cabin which we might like but isn't reasonable) and I can't see them having mainline pilots flying a plane that AC configures at 88 Y / 8 F. Why waste mainline pilots on a plane that small when you can use them for the bigger 737s and A320s and just try and pack more people into them.

hockey7711

Let's give them the limes too!

TheStoicPaisano

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; CPU OS 7_1_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/537.51.2 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.0 Mobile/11D201 Safari/9537.53)

So people get paid to post fantasy trades in the business world, not just sports? Intredasting.

Madone59

I can't believe UA isn't trying to swap planes in exchange for Cleveland

flythewing

Heckuva job, Fly......er.. Hunter.

PV_Premier

whatever Hunter is smoking i'd love to get my hands on some of it.

wrp96

We know the airline is screwed up, but we don't know how to fix it, so we're going to throw out every crazy idea we can think of and see if someone uses it.

EWR764

It's an interesting premise, but I doubt it has legs. The current UAL contract has a payscale for the 190 which falls somewhere between bargain-basement pay for similar equipment at contract operators (SkyWest, Mesa, Compass) and JetBlue's uneconomical rates. With slimelines, UA can probably squeeze a 12/16/72 configuration in a 190, staff it with two flight attendants and achieve slightly better operating costs than the DL 717s.

Moreover, the 190s are already wired for LiveTV, which would facilitate an easier installation of the Ka-band wifi product. I'm not sure if the TVs would survive a transition to UAL.

The question would be whether B6 has interest in getting rid of their 190s, and if so, how they intend to backfill capacity. It is known that the 190s have the worst economics in the B6 fleet, so it's not entirely farfetched to consider that they would make a deal to unload them.

AAExPlat

What should really happen at some point, is for some airline CEO to tell Keay and Baker and all the other idiots to go eff off.

If management at the big airlines ran their companies for their customers rather than for Wall Street, the airlines would actually be doing much better financially.

That Keay would even think that a harebrained idea like this is kosher to air in public shows just how much hubris these guys have and how much influence they think they have over the airline managements.

Last time Jeffey took Hunter's advice on a major strategy shift (declare war on frequent fliers and cut cost), Jeffey paid for it with terrible results....only to be sold out by Keay and Baker after the fact.

These guys really are some pieces of work...

JBord

+1 to both of these. Unfortunately, corporate America no longer cares about building long term value because we've made CEO's into celebrities, whose fame can die instantly, which IMO results in a very predictable behavior of getting every penny they can now before that happens. And of course part of that game is bowing to the analysts, even if you really want to tell them to **** off.

My question is does anyone (including investors) really even pay attention to these analysts any more.

I work in a completely different industry but when my company was acquired several years ago, the analysts all applauded the move and listed all of the synergies, etc. As you could guess, very little if any of those happened, and likely weren't ever in the CEO's plan.

WineCountryUA

Love it when stock analysts play CEO (of course based on their vast experiences in running real companies).

airplanegod

This makes no sense whatsoever. I do agree both UA and B6 are underperforming their peers, but the E190's, as much as B6 complains about them, are critical right now to them for starting up new markets, especially with their DCA expansion. On the other side, I don't see what UA could do with them. They are too big to be a RJ but too small to serve some larger markets. Also, B6 would be out more than 60 aircraft, what are they going to get in return, UA's A319's??? This absolutely makes no sense and this will likely never happen.



That was hilarious