bmwe92fan

My only question is -- and I understand COVID changed this equation mightily -- but I wonder how much it has ultimately cost UA to idle this many frames for well over a year?

United747

Im sure it’s a lot, but I’d guess that P&W (or likely their insurance company) will pay for some damages to UA for the issues.

But airplane engines are absurdly expensive - c. $15-25M each.

N104UA

Then times this by 120 (2 engines a plane and you need spares) you are looking at over $1.5B for a fleet that is already 25+ years old makes it really hard to justify. Plus GE can only make so many engines a year. It would be like saying "why doesn't UA just move up their production slots or buy some more A350s to fix the problem, well most of those production slots are taken years in advance
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JimInOhio

The PW 772s will have to do a bunch of domestic flights before they can be used for ETOPS service.

dmurphynj

This is an interesting take, for sure. Would be curious how many airworthy 777's are idled right now around the globe. Heck, I wonder if any of the 763's that AA retired are airworthy? Wet leases, dry leases, both would be options ... question is - for how long, and would they turn a profit? If what JimInOhio mentioned around a second hydraulic problem being discovered is accurate... how far does that extend the grounding? All dartboard guesses at this point, I suppose.

Obviously most - if not all - of this is impractical, but it sure is fun to speculate.

I'm grateful DELee mentioned above how much work re-engining the UA 777's would be. On the surface, since the plane was available with multiple engine options, it sounds worth exploring ... but clearly not. Appreciate that clarity!

HNLbasedFlyer

At the end of the day we are talking 7 routes - I struggle to call that a meltdown. The multiple times AA has literally cancelled thousands of flights, DL's well publicized call center issues, and even WN various multi-thousand cancellation days seem more "meltdown" worthy to me - at least one has advance notice with UA and can proactively reroute - when I was in Phoenix last month and my friend was heading back to Midway on Southwest and the flight was cancelled on a Sunday afternoon - not only could they not get her back that day - but the only option was next day with an arrival after 1am - that is a meltdown.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

Agree - it's not a meltdown, but the grounding of 52 wide-bodies has extensive impacts throughout the system. Think 52 planes x average load/flight x average segments/day = significant capacity cut. Granted, there's some routes that don't need to be flown now (certain Asian destinations or frequencies), but the impact is noticeable in fares / types of aircraft / capacity. Hawaii could turn into 737 hell this summer. With IAD/EWR non-stops to Hawaii out of the picture for the time being, Northeasterners are going to either forego Hawaii or eat into the alternate capacity to get there. Upgrades are going to be really tough this summer - I might stay in Honolulu for the summer

JimInOhio

I don’t know if that hydraulics issue is true… probably heard it fourth-hand. And who knows, maybe it was already addressed if it was real.

Realistically, it can take a lot to bring planes back that have been idle for so long and needing significant modifications. I’m also pretty sure they can’t go straight to ETOPS operations.

HNLbasedFlyer

UA certainly scheduled them as if they would be ETOPS ready day 1 of return to service.

N104UA

MatthewLAX says it is an oil servicing issue https://liveandletsfly.com/united-ai...nghaul-routes/

They don't need domestic revenue flights but they do require test flights out of storage. I think once you start seeing PW 777s out of VCV start to pop up you will know bringing them back will be imminent

Pilotb

N210UA about to land in HNL from VCV.

bmwe92fan

YES!

Pilotb

Lol. Does it mean anything?

bmwe92fan

Well - to me it means the gates are now open -- why else fly a PW equipped 777 from CA to HNL if it isn't a test flight?

Pilotb

Good point. Looks like it's scheduled to fly to Guam tomorrow.