fun2fly wrote:

Okcflyer wrote:

MSPNWA wrote:

I don't yet agree with those that quickly write off the 772As. Disregarding maintenance status for a moment, the A units perform a unique role that no other aircraft in the fleet can cover well. Sure, you could temporarily throw surplus 787s, 767s, and international 777s in place of the 772A, but the configurations are not ideal for the mission (the 78X and low-J 763s aren't terrible though, but they're crucial for other missions too), and since we're talking a short-term environment where reducing trip cost is key, the international 777s are even worse. I see the -ER fleet getting pared down harder than the A fleet. That's the true excess/expensive/older capacity in the fleet that can be replaced by other aircraft. The new interior is a sunk cost. Hurts to retire it, but it has to be essentially ignored.

The 77A’s don’t make any sense on hub to hub routes when not constrained by a shortage of narrow bodies. On a fuel basis they essentially burn what two 739ER’s would and carry just less than double the pax. It’s better to fly two narrow bodies (or only one If demand is light) than the 77A.

The only place they make sense are ORD/IAH/DEN-Hawaii since the narrowbodies don’t have the range. Assuming you can fill them, their CASM is quite better than 767 (non 76L) which would be the next logistic choice. Also, they make some sense from SFO to Hawaii due to ability to carry premium freight.

HNL-GUM also makes some sense on the HD 777 config.

The HD 77E config can also cover IAD/EWR to Hawaii and take significant freight. With the 764’s going bye-bye, they’re probably the only aircraft other than the 30J 767’s that could work. The 78J would work decently well from a seating breakdown perspective but the scheduling isn’t ideal.

I’m not sure whether it makes sense to convert more 77E’s into the new HD config for standardization (the seating is quite different from the two 77A configs) or just keep the A’s models that are newest / most time remaining.

Since the conversations usually occur during a heavy check, and most of the seats already exist, the cost to convert is rather minimal.

I would expect the HD 77E will get some paper derates to reduce landing costs and potentially engine maintenance cost.

They’d need just 10-12 frames to cover the Hawaii flying. Half the current fleet ...

The other 77A’s should be goners or at least sit in long term storage for a while.

Do you think the 7x new 78J's will be in a domestic configuration for Hawaii GUM service? You'd push 350 pax I'd guess = to the 77A's and do so more efficiently.

Most probably the same config as the other 10’s. If anything, to replace 77E’s higher premium capacity, some 10’s could end up with a more premium configuration then the current. While it’ll probably happen long term, that’s doubtful near term as it’s going to be a while before companies spring for J travel. Easy cost to cut...

Hawaii flying is marginal. Stage lengths are relatively short. Best served by older aircraft where the fuel efficiency delta doesn’t add much to bottom line. Can always cease or reduce freq if market conditions are crap w/Hawaii. No slots or other regs to deal with.

The low J config that works best low-cost Hawaii doesn’t work for most international routes. Therefore dedicating new aircraft to this is high risk, Henceforth why no US3 have done it. (AA/UA/DL). For that matter, 4th-largest m Southwest just started flying there and only from West coast on 737’s. Only Hawaii is running new Widebodies and that’s mostly because they don’t have another choice.

The 78J are best used on UA’s lower premium / higher capacity international routes. 788/763 (30J) cover the lower premium lower capacity routes.

The 789/77W/76L will fly the higher premium routes due to their existing seating configs, depending on stage length and Y demand.

772’s will fill any remaining higher premium needs. Hopefully this is most of them but I’m worried that’s a pipe dream.

Okcflyer wrote:

Most probably the same config as the other 10’s. If anything, to replace 77E’s higher premium capacity, some 10’s could end up with a more premium configuration then the current. While it’ll probably happen long term, that’s doubtful near term as it’s going to be a while before companies spring for J travel. Easy cost to cut...

Hawaii flying is marginal. Stage lengths are relatively short. Best served by older aircraft where the fuel efficiency delta doesn’t add much to bottom line. Can always cease or reduce freq if market conditions are crap w/Hawaii. No slots or other regs to deal with.

The low J config that works best low-cost Hawaii doesn’t work for most international routes. Therefore dedicating new aircraft to this is high risk, Henceforth why no US3 have done it. (AA/UA/DL). For that matter, 4th-largest m Southwest just started flying there and only from West coast on 737’s. Only Hawaii is running new Widebodies and that’s mostly because they don’t have another choice.

The 78J are best used on UA’s lower premium / higher capacity international routes. 788/763 (30J) cover the lower premium lower capacity routes.

The 789/77W/76L will fly the higher premium routes due to their existing seating configs, depending on stage length and Y demand.

772’s will fill any remaining higher premium needs. Hopefully this is most of them but I’m worried that’s a pipe dream.

Didn't American utilize their 788s on there seasonal ORD-HNL flight? Prior to COVID-19 AA's intentions were to return to this market year around with a 788? Also AA if Im not mistaken flew a 788 year around on their ORD-CUN route and on Saturdays during the winter months they operated 2x 788s? Looking at UA's history UA in the past has purchased 777s and 763s for the sole purpose of flying them domestically. Of course times have changed but even with WN's entrance into the Hawaiian market prior to COVID-19 UA in 2020 was planning additional service and additional capacity to the Hawaiian islands from both DEN and SFO. The myth that WN was going to come in and take over the Hawaiian markets was just that a myth. After their initial fire sale WN's ticket prices were just as expensive as UA's and every other carrier flying to/from the mainland, the only airline that struggled against WN to/from Hawaii was AS.

That being said I think UA will take a wait and see approach to the domestic fleet. I don't see UA retiring it just yet however I do think the fleet will be in storage for some time. There are two reasons for the HD fleet the first is volume instead of running 16 EWR-SFO-EWR flights on narrow-bodies UA can run 12 with a mixture of narrow/wide-bodies. The second reason (and this is a lesson UA learned the hard way from the early years of the merger) is cargo. People keep saying "cargo isn't important" but UA did place a 764 on EWR-SJU simply to secure a cargo contract. It had nothing to do with passenger traffic at all. The only way to secure that lucrative contract was to utilize a wide-body and the shipper would not budge. Prior to COVID-19 part of the reason there were wide-bodies flying between all the hubs was to move cargo. UA which operated more international flights than either DL or AA used the domestic fleet as freighters. UA is not AA or DL if people looked at UA's quarterly reports going back a few years they will notice UA continually outperformed both AA and DL in term of the amount of cargo being shipped. Even now during the middle of COVID-19 UA is operating more weekly cargo flights than either AA or DL. United may not have dedicated freighters like some European and Asian carriers but we utilize our wide-bodies as freighters. I think UA will take a wait and see approach before making a final decision about the domestic wide-body fleet. UA Cargo has really turn things around ever since UA hired executives from both LH and KL to take over UA Cargo.

KVH68 wrote:

LGeneReese wrote:

789
Any have info on status of N29975, the then brand new 789 the suffered wing damage in ORD, hitting a light pole, before its first revenue flight? Is it actively being repaired at this time or parked, waiting on better times ?

That aircraft is still at ORD being repaired.

This aircraft is/was scheduled for a test hop today as UA2696/15May.... as of now it’s still on the ground...

LGeneReese wrote:

KVH68 wrote:

LGeneReese wrote:

789
Any have info on status of N29975, the then brand new 789 the suffered wing damage in ORD, hitting a light pole, before its first revenue flight? Is it actively being repaired at this time or parked, waiting on better times ?

That aircraft is still at ORD being repaired.

This aircraft is/was scheduled for a test hop today as UA2696/15May.... as of now it’s still on the ground...

Already departed, will back to ORD around 2:09 pm.

UAL 2696 (the bird with the broken wing). Just landed back at ORD at 2:25pm local, after 1:32 flight time up to central Wisconsin for a couple loops, back down the lakefront and landed on 28C. Headed back to United hanger area for now.

jayunited wrote:

Didn't American utilize their 788s on there seasonal ORD-HNL flight? Prior to COVID-19 AA's intentions were to return to this market year around with a 788? Also AA if Im not mistaken flew a 788 year around on their ORD-CUN route and on Saturdays during the winter months they operated 2x 788s? Looking at UA's history UA in the past has purchased 777s and 763s for the sole purpose of flying them domestically. Of course times have changed but even with WN's entrance into the Hawaiian market prior to COVID-19 UA in 2020 was planning additional service and additional capacity to the Hawaiian islands from both DEN and SFO. The myth that WN was going to come in and take over the Hawaiian markets was just that a myth. After their initial fire sale WN's ticket prices were just as expensive as UA's and every other carrier flying to/from the mainland, the only airline that struggled against WN to/from Hawaii was AS.

That being said I think UA will take a wait and see approach to the domestic fleet. I don't see UA retiring it just yet however I do think the fleet will be in storage for some time. There are two reasons for the HD fleet the first is volume instead of running 16 EWR-SFO-EWR flights on narrow-bodies UA can run 12 with a mixture of narrow/wide-bodies. The second reason (and this is a lesson UA learned the hard way from the early years of the merger) is cargo. People keep saying "cargo isn't important" but UA did place a 764 on EWR-SJU simply to secure a cargo contract. It had nothing to do with passenger traffic at all. The only way to secure that lucrative contract was to utilize a wide-body and the shipper would not budge. Prior to COVID-19 part of the reason there were wide-bodies flying between all the hubs was to move cargo. UA which operated more international flights than either DL or AA used the domestic fleet as freighters. UA is not AA or DL if people looked at UA's quarterly reports going back a few years they will notice UA continually outperformed both AA and DL in term of the amount of cargo being shipped. Even now during the middle of COVID-19 UA is operating more weekly cargo flights than either AA or DL. United may not have dedicated freighters like some European and Asian carriers but we utilize our wide-bodies as freighters. I think UA will take a wait and see approach before making a final decision about the domestic wide-body fleet. UA Cargo has really turn things around ever since UA hired executives from both LH and KL to take over UA Cargo.

Thanks again for your insight. It's really great to read about how some of these network decisions are made. I was always confused why UA put such a high capacity aircraft on EWR-SJU when it was clearly giving them a subpar yield. Seems like 777s should be the best at hauling cargos. How does something like 78J compare to 772s? And do 787-8/9 haul a lot more than 764s?

United trying to resume service to China as had been rumored here before.


United Airlines Wants Back Into China But Regulatory Hurdles Remain
https://skift.com/2020/05/15/united-air ... es-remain/

Hopes to offer SFO-China starting June 20th.

On today's town hall, someone asked specifically about the PW 752 and 764 fleets, and we got perhaps the clearest answer to date from Nocella. He said both fleets would be put in storage for the foreseeable future, but that UA would like to get the 764 fleet back up and running at some point assuming circumstances allow. He was less positive about the PW 752s, which sounded like they might not come back except under the best of circumstances.

tphuang wrote:

jayunited wrote:

Didn't American utilize their 788s on there seasonal ORD-HNL flight? Prior to COVID-19 AA's intentions were to return to this market year around with a 788? Also AA if Im not mistaken flew a 788 year around on their ORD-CUN route and on Saturdays during the winter months they operated 2x 788s? Looking at UA's history UA in the past has purchased 777s and 763s for the sole purpose of flying them domestically. Of course times have changed but even with WN's entrance into the Hawaiian market prior to COVID-19 UA in 2020 was planning additional service and additional capacity to the Hawaiian islands from both DEN and SFO. The myth that WN was going to come in and take over the Hawaiian markets was just that a myth. After their initial fire sale WN's ticket prices were just as expensive as UA's and every other carrier flying to/from the mainland, the only airline that struggled against WN to/from Hawaii was AS.

That being said I think UA will take a wait and see approach to the domestic fleet. I don't see UA retiring it just yet however I do think the fleet will be in storage for some time. There are two reasons for the HD fleet the first is volume instead of running 16 EWR-SFO-EWR flights on narrow-bodies UA can run 12 with a mixture of narrow/wide-bodies. The second reason (and this is a lesson UA learned the hard way from the early years of the merger) is cargo. People keep saying "cargo isn't important" but UA did place a 764 on EWR-SJU simply to secure a cargo contract. It had nothing to do with passenger traffic at all. The only way to secure that lucrative contract was to utilize a wide-body and the shipper would not budge. Prior to COVID-19 part of the reason there were wide-bodies flying between all the hubs was to move cargo. UA which operated more international flights than either DL or AA used the domestic fleet as freighters. UA is not AA or DL if people looked at UA's quarterly reports going back a few years they will notice UA continually outperformed both AA and DL in term of the amount of cargo being shipped. Even now during the middle of COVID-19 UA is operating more weekly cargo flights than either AA or DL. United may not have dedicated freighters like some European and Asian carriers but we utilize our wide-bodies as freighters. I think UA will take a wait and see approach before making a final decision about the domestic wide-body fleet. UA Cargo has really turn things around ever since UA hired executives from both LH and KL to take over UA Cargo.

Thanks again for your insight. It's really great to read about how some of these network decisions are made. I was always confused why UA put such a high capacity aircraft on EWR-SJU when it was clearly giving them a subpar yield. Seems like 777s should be the best at hauling cargos. How does something like 78J compare to 772s? And do 787-8/9 haul a lot more than 764s?

If it was confusing why UA did it from EWR, why not equally as confusing when AA did it from PHL with an A330? Surely, there's something there or neither would be doing it. I've flown the EWR>SJU a few times and it's usually chock full of VFR's, so the seat count was never confusing, never knew if there was enough premium demand in business however.

fun2fly wrote:

If it was confusing why UA did it from EWR, why not equally as confusing when AA did it from PHL with an A330? Surely, there's something there or neither would be doing it. I've flown the EWR>SJU a few times and it's usually chock full of VFR's, so the seat count was never confusing, never knew if there was enough premium demand in business however.

Prior to UA using a 764 on this route we were sending 2x daily 738s. UA Cargo is setup a lot like our passenger service, in the cargo world UA has business class, premium economy, economy plus, regular economy and then basic economy. To give a small insight high priority cargo (business class) brings in the most revenue but has very strict delivery terms. If UA misses the delivery UA has to refund the entire cost to ship the cargo also this cargo has to be delivered at the same time. For example if the shipper delivers 5 PMC's to UA, UA must deliver all 5 PMC's if we fail to deliver all 5 on-time the shipment is free. Contrast that with basic economy cargo the cheapest route a shipper can take. If someone books the equivalent of basic economy UA has 7 days to deliver you shipment and the shipment can be delivered in stages meaning you may not receive it all at once.

The contract on our EWR-SJU-EWR route is with a pharmaceutical company and pharmaceuticals need to kept at a specific temperature and a narrow-body just would not do because whatever they are shipping is shipped in specialized LD3's knows as RKN's or specialized PMC's known as RAPs . These containers allow the shipper to control the temperature of the product being shipped, something you can't control on a narrow-body. I'm not sure which pharmaceutical company UA has a contract with but I do know the entire forward compartment of the 764 and 2 full length positions in the rear of the aircraft belong to this company per the contract. When you have a company willing to pay a premium for that much cargo space on a flight I don't think UA really cared if premium demand in the cabin was there because they were already getting a premium for the cargo. The only way UA would lose money on the flight was if we failed to meet the delivery time. This flight was so important and UA made so much money on this one flight that there were times UA would delay our daytime EWR-LHR flight to either steal the flight crew to work EWR-SJU-EWR. Or when the morning LHR flight was a 764 UA would steal the aircraft itself to operated EWR-SJU-EWR if no other 764s were available.

Whenever this cargo contract end I can promise you it will be the end of wide-body service on this route.

fun2fly wrote:

If it was confusing why UA did it from EWR, why not equally as confusing when AA did it from PHL with an A330? Surely, there's something there or neither would be doing it. I've flown the EWR>SJU a few times and it's usually chock full of VFR's, so the seat count was never confusing, never knew if there was enough premium demand in business however.

BTS data would show that flight relies a lot on low yielding connection traffic to fill up the cabin. Which is why I said it didn't make much sense to me why they were using a widebody for a route their competitors use narrowbody.

UAX Update:

Update on Parked 70-76 seaters: As you can see, these fleets are being used more than any other seating-type. Parked aircraft are listed below, all other frames are currently flying (or in for routine scheduled maintenance). Transfer of the ex-EV E175SCs to Skywest is progressing rapidly.

OO E175: All 65 frames flying

YV E175: All 60 frames flying

YX E175:
CMH: 721, 727, 728, 740, 752
SDF: 741, 742, 750
IND: 722, 723, 749

OO E175SC:
Newly in-service with Skywest: 603, 608, 623
In BOI for transfer to Skywest: 607, 609, 617, 622
Stored at OKC awaiting Skywest transfer: 604, 605, 606, 610, 611, 612, 613, 614, 615, 616, 618

YX E170:
SDF: 632, 643, 644, 645, 651, 855, 861
CMH: 633, 636, 637, 649, 654, 857
IND: 631, 641, 650, 652, 655, 656, 657, 856, 858, 859, 863, 864, 979

YV CR7:
IAD: 512
OKC: 502

OO CR7: All 19 frames flying

I have to ask...what would be the future of E145/E45X flying at United Express?

aemoreira1981 wrote:

I have to ask...what would be the future of E145/E45X flying at United Express?

From https://skift.com/2020/04/02/united-air ... snap-back/:

United is taking a similar wait-and-see approach on aircraft and has not made plans to permanently ground any fleet type, Kirby said. Still, he said the cramped CRJ-200s and Embraer E145s, which fly as United Express, likely won’t stick around long.

“My guess the 50 seaters mostly will be gone, by the end of this,” he said.

tphuang wrote:

jayunited wrote:

Didn't American utilize their 788s on there seasonal ORD-HNL flight? Prior to COVID-19 AA's intentions were to return to this market year around with a 788? Also AA if Im not mistaken flew a 788 year around on their ORD-CUN route and on Saturdays during the winter months they operated 2x 788s? Looking at UA's history UA in the past has purchased 777s and 763s for the sole purpose of flying them domestically. Of course times have changed but even with WN's entrance into the Hawaiian market prior to COVID-19 UA in 2020 was planning additional service and additional capacity to the Hawaiian islands from both DEN and SFO. The myth that WN was going to come in and take over the Hawaiian markets was just that a myth. After their initial fire sale WN's ticket prices were just as expensive as UA's and every other carrier flying to/from the mainland, the only airline that struggled against WN to/from Hawaii was AS.

That being said I think UA will take a wait and see approach to the domestic fleet. I don't see UA retiring it just yet however I do think the fleet will be in storage for some time. There are two reasons for the HD fleet the first is volume instead of running 16 EWR-SFO-EWR flights on narrow-bodies UA can run 12 with a mixture of narrow/wide-bodies. The second reason (and this is a lesson UA learned the hard way from the early years of the merger) is cargo. People keep saying "cargo isn't important" but UA did place a 764 on EWR-SJU simply to secure a cargo contract. It had nothing to do with passenger traffic at all. The only way to secure that lucrative contract was to utilize a wide-body and the shipper would not budge. Prior to COVID-19 part of the reason there were wide-bodies flying between all the hubs was to move cargo. UA which operated more international flights than either DL or AA used the domestic fleet as freighters. UA is not AA or DL if people looked at UA's quarterly reports going back a few years they will notice UA continually outperformed both AA and DL in term of the amount of cargo being shipped. Even now during the middle of COVID-19 UA is operating more weekly cargo flights than either AA or DL. United may not have dedicated freighters like some European and Asian carriers but we utilize our wide-bodies as freighters. I think UA will take a wait and see approach before making a final decision about the domestic wide-body fleet. UA Cargo has really turn things around ever since UA hired executives from both LH and KL to take over UA Cargo.

Thanks again for your insight. It's really great to read about how some of these network decisions are made. I was always confused why UA put such a high capacity aircraft on EWR-SJU when it was clearly giving them a subpar yield. Seems like 777s should be the best at hauling cargos. How does something like 78J compare to 772s? And do 787-8/9 haul a lot more than 764s?

The HNL-GUM flight was upgauged from the 764 shortly after the merger and has remained a 772 for the same reason. Several years ago, 2016-17 time period if memory serves, a former colleague of mine who worked in Fleet Planning told me his department was working with Network Planning to analyze whether or not they could consistently, and viably operate the flight with the 752, with would have ultimate gone 2x daily. I recall there were several considerations that led to UA scrapping the idea. Most notably was the contract UA has with USPS to carry mail to GUM and the Mid Pacific Island Nations, as well as the high yielding cargo market.
The other consideration I clearly remember was the propensity for GUM bound passengers to have considerable amounts of heavy checked bags. Under normal circumstances it was not uncommon to see 16-18 LD3 positions allotted for passenger bags along. For comparison, flights to Hawaii from the Mainland and back, operated by the 772 with the same seat count averages about 9 LD3 positions.

As for the cargo hauling capabilities of UA's WB fleet, there really isn't a "best". It may be more fitting to consider what type is the most optimal. As is the case on the passenger side, its pretty dependent on the market and in some cases the season. The 77W offers the most capacity and highest payloads and is thus the most capable. But that doesn't automatically make it the most optimal plane for the job. That is to say, if passenger demand dictates the 77W is most optimal for the given route, but the cargo demand is soft, flying around a bunch of empty positions is not an optimal use of its very capable cargo hold and payload performance.

The following is an oversimplification of aircraft performance considerations as it relates to the air cargo industry but helps illustrate the notion that there really isn't a best aircraft type. As a general rule, the level of demand coupled with the prevailing characteristics of the cargo being shipped most frequently on a given route and the stage length of those routes will determine whether an aircraft that offers more capacity than payload, or the reverse is the most ideal. For example:

A mid range-long haul, high demand route where the majority of freight is more dense than voluminous would generally benefit from an aircraft type that offers the highest payload performance possible, even if there is enough volume to fill a higher capacity aircraft.
Applied to UA WB types: A 789 would be the optimal type over a 78X this scenario because the added capacity offered by the 78X is useless if the weight of the freight drives a payload restriction prior to filling it.
On a route with similar stage length and demand, but with cargo that is generally more voluminous, the 78X would be more optimal as the 789's added payload performance won't be realized as capacity will max out on capacity long before the added payload becomes advantageous while uplifting more volume with the 78X.

Prior to the pandemic and the rise of Cargo Only Charters, UA based fleet utilization decisions entirely on passenger demand, with limited exceptions like EWR-SJU and HNL-GUM. The Cargo division at UA, as with most passenger carriers had to make the best of whatever aircraft type network planning assigned. Sometimes the aircraft type that most closely matches passenger demand on a given route turns out to be a suboptimal type for cargo. In some cases a change in gauge can be disastrous. You can consider a type suboptimal if a change in gauge would drive revenue loss due decreased payload performance and/or capacity, or conversely, increase unused payload or capacity. The notion of unused payload or capacity being viewed as suboptimal becomes a factor when you consider there are almost always routes where you could use those capabilities better. An example of gauge change that would considered disastrous would be SJU-EWR or HNL-GUM going from WB to NB.

A very specific example highlighting these intricacies was UA's ORD-HNL roundtrip. Pre-pandemic the flight was operated with the HD 77A. That route pushes the limits of the 77A's performance, especially Westbound to HNL. So much so in fact, that particular segment rarely ever carried any cargo due to weight restrictions. The Eastbound return had better payload performance but still struggled, especially in the Winter.
As passenger demand declined as the pandemic started to spread domestically, UA initially planned to downgauge the ORDHNL flight from the 77A to a 788. The flight ultimately downgauged from the 77A directly to the 763 which operated the flight for a few weeks prior to the flight being suspended. For the Cargo division, going from a 77A to either the 788 or 763 could actually be considered an upgauge.
The 77A's poor payload performance on that route caused consistent weight restrictions long before UA could fill all available positions, despite there being enough demand in both directs. Both segments routinely operated at 100% weight load factor while having capacity load factor less than 50%. The 77A has 32 LD3 positions, the 788 has 28 LD3 positions and the 763 has 30 LD2 positions. Despite the 77A having the highest number of positions, its capacity advantage was useless due to the payload constraints. The superior payload performance of the 788 and 763 allowed UA to uplift more cargo on both segments, resulting in a higher capacity load factor, and increase revenue generation.

Hope this sheds some light.

77H

319:
N873UA - Delivered to UA on 12-May. China Southern flew it to XMN on 11-May to begin induction modification work.

fun2fly wrote:

tphuang wrote:

I was always confused why UA put such a high capacity aircraft on EWR-SJU when it was clearly giving them a subpar yield.

If it was confusing why UA did it from EWR, why not equally as confusing when AA did it from PHL with an A330? Surely, there's something there or neither would be doing it. I've flown the EWR>SJU a few times and it's usually chock full of VFR's, so the seat count was never confusing, never knew if there was enough premium demand in business however.

Pharmaceutical manufacturing is huge in Puerto Rico (including something like 80% of the U.S. supply of IV maintenance fluids like normal saline and dextrose that are made there), a point backed up by jayunited's post above. I expect both SJU-EWR and SJU-PHL see widebodies for that reason, with added benefits being the large amount of Puerto Rican VFR traffic from the Northeast and the concentration of many pharma companies in the corridor between Philly and northern New Jersey. Pre-COVID-19 AA was regularly sending a daily 763 on one of the MIA-SJU frequencies, which I expect also had a lot to do with cargo. It'll be interesting to see if they put 787s on these SJU routes in the near future given the retired 763s and parked 330s.

FSDan wrote:

fun2fly wrote:

tphuang wrote:

I was always confused why UA put such a high capacity aircraft on EWR-SJU when it was clearly giving them a subpar yield.

If it was confusing why UA did it from EWR, why not equally as confusing when AA did it from PHL with an A330? Surely, there's something there or neither would be doing it. I've flown the EWR>SJU a few times and it's usually chock full of VFR's, so the seat count was never confusing, never knew if there was enough premium demand in business however.

Pharmaceutical manufacturing is huge in Puerto Rico (including something like 80% of the U.S. supply of IV maintenance fluids like normal saline and dextrose that are made there), a point backed up by jayunited's post above. I expect both SJU-EWR and SJU-PHL see widebodies for that reason, with added benefits being the large amount of Puerto Rican VFR traffic from the Northeast and the concentration of many pharma companies in the corridor between Philly and northern New Jersey. Pre-COVID-19 AA was regularly sending a daily 763 on one of the MIA-SJU frequencies, which I expect also had a lot to do with cargo. It'll be interesting to see if they put 787s on these SJU routes in the near future given the retired 763s and parked 330s.

...thanks for the explanation. That explains why UA is operating cargo only 772ER service on IAD-SJU. They are the only ER flights I can find right now.

Effective 5/19 United is notifying customers of flights booked beyond 70% and allowing for a change of itinerary if so desired - and will not board non revs beyond 70% capacity.

Hi,

I know this has probably been discussed, but can anyone tell me why United has changed most (if not all) of their international flights to have 2XXX numbers? Is there any way to tell if these are cargo flights? I've also noticed the 777-300ER's are being flown out of LAX to HKG and other random destinations.

adamblang wrote:

aemoreira1981 wrote:

I have to ask...what would be the future of E145/E45X flying at United Express?

From https://skift.com/2020/04/02/united-air ... snap-back/:

United is taking a similar wait-and-see approach on aircraft and has not made plans to permanently ground any fleet type, Kirby said. Still, he said the cramped CRJ-200s and Embraer E145s, which fly as United Express, likely won’t stick around long.

“My guess the 50 seaters mostly will be gone, by the end of this,” he said.

How will that affect the scope clause?

777222LR wrote:

Hi,

I know this has probably been discussed, but can anyone tell me why United has changed most (if not all) of their international flights to have 2XXX numbers? Is there any way to tell if these are cargo flights? I've also noticed the 777-300ER's are being flown out of LAX to HKG and other random destinations.

All 2xxx flights are cargo or repatriation flights. The scheduled international passenger flights are using their normal flight numbers.

Okcflyer wrote:

The problem with the 764 is that it has too many unique attributes. Special gear based on 777 design. Special flight deck with 777 components and not used on another high volume 767. In UA’s case, the only CF6 on property. All of these increase execution risk and therefore cost. While the frame itself is efficient, it doesn’t fit within synergies of a large organization.

Stick a fork in most 777HDs (mid 90’s). Those only make sense on Hawaii service from IAH/ORD/DEN/SFO (maxed with cargo).

The 753 is a similar story. Good economics when flying. Stranger. Not worth the time and effort without a large 752 fleet as well.

I think most interesting will be what happens on the narrow bodies. Retirements will happen, especially as MAX’s are delivered. *What* retires first will be most interesting. Early IAE powered Airbuses? Early CFM 737’s? Will the A319/737 size stick around in numbers (Meaning A320’s / 738’s retired) or will the smallest get the whack.

In the booming economy, the small incremental cost of the 738/A320 was considered trivial and easily covered by revenue management practices.

With a contracted market, those 5-6% cost savings can add up, and I’ve always wonder if the engine maintenance factor was properly accounted for. Due to their lower trust, they don’t deteriorate as quickly (fuel savings) and can last longer before overhaul. I suppose in large fleets those smaller birds for the longest time engines off the heavier-worked frames.

you could be right however? I suspect that you're wrong. the 737-700's and maybe non ETOPS 737's might be leaving if any are. the A319;s all have the range to fly conus to HNL and all over the Americas. North to south. they can be the backbone of the returning passenger traffic domestically until we need larger airplanes on a daily basis.

The -700's and 319's are the backbone of the mainline fleet at the moment.

United1 wrote:

777222LR wrote:

Hi,

I know this has probably been discussed, but can anyone tell me why United has changed most (if not all) of their international flights to have 2XXX numbers? Is there any way to tell if these are cargo flights? I've also noticed the 777-300ER's are being flown out of LAX to HKG and other random destinations.

All 2xxx flights are cargo or repatriation flights. The scheduled international passenger flights are using their normal flight numbers.

Partially correct. If 27xx or 28xx they are cargo flights. UA has some passenger flights in low 2xxx range. Ex 2166 ORD to SFO.

KLMatSJC wrote:

adamblang wrote:

aemoreira1981 wrote:

I have to ask...what would be the future of E145/E45X flying at United Express?

From https://skift.com/2020/04/02/united-air ... snap-back/:

United is taking a similar wait-and-see approach on aircraft and has not made plans to permanently ground any fleet type, Kirby said. Still, he said the cramped CRJ-200s and Embraer E145s, which fly as United Express, likely won’t stick around long.

“My guess the 50 seaters mostly will be gone, by the end of this,” he said.

How will that affect the scope clause?

It won't. I don't see anything in the ALPA contract about 50-seat minimums (that would be odd) or ratios or anything in the AFA contract about 50-seat regional jets at all.

TrafficCop wrote:

United1 wrote:

777222LR wrote:

Hi,

I know this has probably been discussed, but can anyone tell me why United has changed most (if not all) of their international flights to have 2XXX numbers? Is there any way to tell if these are cargo flights? I've also noticed the 777-300ER's are being flown out of LAX to HKG and other random destinations.

All 2xxx flights are cargo or repatriation flights. The scheduled international passenger flights are using their normal flight numbers.

Partially correct. If 27xx or 28xx they are cargo flights. UA has some passenger flights in low 2xxx range. Ex 2166 ORD to SFO.

You are correct but as 777222LR specifically asked about international flights I didn't think to mention domestic flights.

UA2765 LAX-GUM 77W
UA2774 LAX-HKG 77W
UA2853 LAX-HKG 77W
UA2796 LAX-FRA 789
UA2812 LAX-SYD 789

All 737’s are ETOPS and no 319 is over water certified. Only a small handful of 320 are over water certified.

UAX Update:

Update on Parked 50-seaters. I think it is more clear now what UA's long-term plan is for the Express Fleet as 50-seaters have been optimised to current flying. Most of CommutAir's E145XR fleet has returned to flying, and most of Air Wisconsin's CR2 fleet has been parked. There has also been the start of long-term/permanent storage for the older ExpressJet E145s (likely to be replaced by the ex-AX E145XRs once more flying is retuned). All frames listed below are parked, all others are currently flying (or in for routine scheudled maintenance).

G7 CR5:
STL: 506, 534, 535, 536, 538, 539, 540, 541, 543, 544, 545
N642CA (2003 build) has been re-registered as N523GJ, and has entered revenue service with GoJet

EV E145:
TYS: 535, 551, 555, 569, 902, 975, 976, 977, 988
CLE: 542, 545, 546, 548, 553, 556, 558, 564, 573, 904, 910, 916, 980, 991
IAH: 574, 575, 901, 986
RIC: 562, 981, 989, 995
Fleet Exit (stored at IGM): 537, 538, 540, 568, 570, 905, 908, 909, 911, 915

AX 145 and 145XR: All parked

C5 E145XR:
ALB: 161, 173, 187, 194, 197, 198, 199, 204

EV E145XR:
TYS: 105, 108, 109, 110, 180, 192
RIC: 185
IAH: 135, 159, 196
CLE: 167, 170

ZW CR2:
ATW: 471, 470, 469, 467, 466, 459, 456, 450, 449, 444, 439, 435, 434, 430, 427, 419, 417, 416, 415, 413, 412, 408, 405
DAY: 463, 462, 460, 458, 455, 454, 453, 452, 448, 447, 446, 445, 442, 421, 418, 414, 411
ROW: 451, 440, 438, 437, 436

OO CR2:
CKB: 906EV, 913
FWI: 934
TUS: 223, 423, 464, 652, 857, 860, 862, 880, 881, 901EV, 925EV, 937EV, 937, 938, 939, 941, 987, 902EV, 907EV

I'm not sure if this has been brought up on this thread already if it has disregard I just don't feel like searching the previous 5-7 pages.

United has reactivated 3 757-300s and 1 767-300, the reason is for social distancing.
N57857, N57855, N75854, and N646UA have all been place back into regular service.

I'm also hearing UA may place another 14 "larger" frames back into service. Now larger frames does NOT necessarily mean more 757s or 767s UA could also be looking at reactivating more 739ERs, as an upguage for a 738, and/or more A320s as an upguage for a A319.

jayunited wrote:

I'm not sure if this has been brought up on this thread already if it has disregard I just don't feel like searching the previous 5-7 pages.

United has reactivated 3 757-300s and 1 767-300, the reason is for social distancing.
N57857, N57855, N75854, and N646UA have all been place back into regular service.

I'm also hearing UA may place another 14 "larger" frames back into service. Now larger frames does NOT necessarily mean more 757s or 767s UA could also be looking at reactivating more 739ERs, as an upguage for a 738, and/or more A320s as an upguage for a A319.

That's awesome news...

Thanks for posting that. I look forward to seeing your posts pop up.

N646UA a 767-300 operated EWR-IAH on today and luckily we had 20 no-show passengers. If those 20 passengers had shown up UA would have been unable to "social distance" even on a widebody.

I don't want to go down the social distance rabbit hole but it is amazing the number of people who are now buying tickets 2-3 days prior to departure. The decision to upguage a flight is made 24-48 hours before departure it is based on several factors including load factors but know this NOT ALL flights will be upguaged on some flights UA will just release the middle seats.

Also for people saying airlines should just raise their prices a round trip last minute ticket 3 days out on UA EWR-IAH now cost (I did a dummy booking) $545 dollars on a non-refundable ticket, the highest price I saw the closer to departure is now up to $1,063 dollars for an economy nonrefundable ticket. A fully refundable economy ticket the price was up to $1,844 dollars. For most departures basic economy fares were not available for those flights were the option was available basic economy cost $531 dollars.

This flight was EWR-IAH was supposed to be a A319 which was upguaged to a 763 and the flight departed with 30J and 101Y. If the 20 no-show passengers had shown up there would have been 121Y which would have forced UA to place about 4 passengers into middle seats on a wide-body, after the flight was already upguaged 48 hours before departure.

After the shellacking UA took last week over a full 738 on EWR-SFO and seeing what UA is now charging passengers who book last minute I'm not sure how much more the market can take before UA starts to loose passengers to the ULCCs like NK or F9.

jayunited wrote:

N646UA a 767-300 operated EWR-IAH on today and luckily we had 20 no-show passengers. If those 20 passengers had shown up UA would have been unable to "social distance" even on a widebody.

I don't want to go down the social distance rabbit hole but it is amazing the number of people who are now buying tickets 2-3 days prior to departure. The decision to upguage a flight is made 24-48 hours before departure it is based on several factors including load factors but know this NOT ALL flights will be upguaged on some flights UA will just release the middle seats.

Also for people saying airlines should just raise their prices a round trip last minute ticket 3 days out on UA EWR-IAH now cost (I did a dummy booking) $545 dollars on a non-refundable ticket, the highest price I saw the closer to departure is now up to $1,063 dollars for an economy nonrefundable ticket. A fully refundable economy ticket the price was up to $1,844 dollars. For most departures basic economy fares were not available for those flights were the option was available basic economy cost $531 dollars.

This flight was EWR-IAH was supposed to be a A319 which was upguaged to a 763 and the flight departed with 30J and 101Y. If the 20 no-show passengers had shown up there would have been 121Y which would have forced UA to place about 4 passengers into middle seats on a wide-body, after the flight was already upguaged 48 hours before departure.

After the shellacking UA took last week over a full 738 on EWR-SFO and seeing what UA is now charging passengers who book last minute I'm not sure how much more the market can take before UA starts to loose passengers to the ULCCs like NK or F9.

I don't think UA should be worried about F9 out of EWR. F9 doesn't really stick around in these higher cost airport like EWR. It should definitely be worried about NK, but NK is flying about as much of its schedule as UA is right now.

This week's B6 update had them flying 15x daily out of EWR by second half of June. That is about half of their pre-COVID scheduled flight and almost 2/3 of the flights they flew last summer. It would not surprise me if B6 runs close to a 100% pre-COVID schedule out of EWR by March.

UA probably does need to add flights back to EWR quicker or B6/NK are going to fill in the void. The international weakness is going to hurt a lot of the shorter flights that feed them.

I do wonder when UA is deciding to bring back its NYC flights and has to choose between utilizing its LGA slot (after waiver period is over) vs consolidating its position at EWR, what does it chose? Does it try to keep using all of its LGA slots or give up some and have that traffic go through EWR?

tphuang wrote:

jayunited wrote:

N646UA a 767-300 operated EWR-IAH on today and luckily we had 20 no-show passengers. If those 20 passengers had shown up UA would have been unable to "social distance" even on a widebody.

I don't want to go down the social distance rabbit hole but it is amazing the number of people who are now buying tickets 2-3 days prior to departure. The decision to upguage a flight is made 24-48 hours before departure it is based on several factors including load factors but know this NOT ALL flights will be upguaged on some flights UA will just release the middle seats.

Also for people saying airlines should just raise their prices a round trip last minute ticket 3 days out on UA EWR-IAH now cost (I did a dummy booking) $545 dollars on a non-refundable ticket, the highest price I saw the closer to departure is now up to $1,063 dollars for an economy nonrefundable ticket. A fully refundable economy ticket the price was up to $1,844 dollars. For most departures basic economy fares were not available for those flights were the option was available basic economy cost $531 dollars.

This flight was EWR-IAH was supposed to be a A319 which was upguaged to a 763 and the flight departed with 30J and 101Y. If the 20 no-show passengers had shown up there would have been 121Y which would have forced UA to place about 4 passengers into middle seats on a wide-body, after the flight was already upguaged 48 hours before departure.

After the shellacking UA took last week over a full 738 on EWR-SFO and seeing what UA is now charging passengers who book last minute I'm not sure how much more the market can take before UA starts to loose passengers to the ULCCs like NK or F9.

I don't think UA should be worried about F9 out of EWR. F9 doesn't really stick around in these higher cost airport like EWR. It should definitely be worried about NK, but NK is flying about as much of its schedule as UA is right now.

This week's B6 update had them flying 15x daily out of EWR by second half of June. That is about half of their pre-COVID scheduled flight and almost 2/3 of the flights they flew last summer. It would not surprise me if B6 runs close to a 100% pre-COVID schedule out of EWR by March.

UA probably does need to add flights back to EWR quicker or B6/NK are going to fill in the void. The international weakness is going to hurt a lot of the shorter flights that feed them.

I do wonder when UA is deciding to bring back its NYC flights and has to choose between utilizing its LGA slot (after waiver period is over) vs consolidating its position at EWR, what does it chose? Does it try to keep using all of its LGA slots or give up some and have that traffic go through EWR?

I’d definitely be a slight bit on edge if I was UA and watching F9 at EWR. They started EWR service on Nov 14th and planned to fly to 16 destinations. They launched around 10 or so of the destinations and plan to continue in the future with 11 daily flights to 12 destinations. 3 of these routes, DEN, ORD, and RDU were never even flown before and are still scheduled to launch in June. DEN and ORD will fly seasonally in the summer and will alternate with PBI and PHX which will fly in the winter.

So why now should UA be concerned with F9’s presence at EWR. First, F9 doesn’t have much experience in the market but is already seeing numbers good enough to stay. Second, F9 is competing with UA on more than just leisure routes. DEN and ORD are both UA hubs and key markets. F9 is also taking a chance with RDU and PHX. Lastly, F9 came in quick the first time, why wouldn’t they do it again? Many are predicting a quicker return for leisure travel (My flight last week on F9 from EWR was about 90% full) compared to business travel. This is F9’s bread and butter.

Where do I see B6 at EWR? I agree with you that they will be at a near complete schedule by next spring. They did very well from EWR from what I heard and there was some pretty solid rumors they were considering expanding. It was a pretty positive sign that EWR was about equal to MCO at the end of June considering EWR was the hardest hit airport in the Nation.

jayunited wrote:

United has reactivated 3 757-300s and 1 767-300, the reason is for social distancing.
N57857, N57855, N75854, and N646UA have all been place back into regular service.

Confirming what you said:

Yesterday afternoon, 17 May, I saw 753 N57857 at IAH gate E9 waiting for a scheduled MIA departure at 1900. Very unusual, I thought, since the 753s have been absent here for some time.

The publicly available post-departure seat chart for UA1005 showed the following load:

F 24 / 24
Y 128 / 210

Total = 152 / 234 = 65% LF

https://www.united.com/en/us/flightstat ... IAH/MIA/UA

It was encouraging to see the return of the 753, and also the nice load factor matching up with UA's new idea of going for a 70% LF when possible, to promote "social distancing".

This same aircraft is scheduled today to fly back from MIA to IAH as UA1007 at 06:20, currently showing a similar LF.

https://www.united.com/en/us/flightstat ... MIA/IAH/UA

Nicknuzzii wrote:

I’d definitely be a slight bit on edge if I was UA and watching F9 at EWR. They started EWR service on Nov 14th and planned to fly to 16 destinations. They launched around 10 or so of the destinations and plan to continue in the future with 11 daily flights to 12 destinations. 3 of these routes, DEN, ORD, and RDU were never even flown before and are still scheduled to launch in June. DEN and ORD will fly seasonally in the summer and will alternate with PBI and PHX which will fly in the winter.

So why now should UA be concerned with F9’s presence at EWR. First, F9 doesn’t have much experience in the market but is already seeing numbers good enough to stay. Second, F9 is competing with UA on more than just leisure routes. DEN and ORD are both UA hubs and key markets. F9 is also taking a chance with RDU and PHX. Lastly, F9 came in quick the first time, why wouldn’t they do it again? Many are predicting a quicker return for leisure travel (My flight last week on F9 from EWR was about 90% full) compared to business travel. This is F9’s bread and butter.

Where do I see B6 at EWR? I agree with you that they will be at a near complete schedule by next spring. They did very well from EWR from what I heard and there was some pretty solid rumors they were considering expanding. It was a pretty positive sign that EWR was about equal to MCO at the end of June considering EWR was the hardest hit airport in the Nation.

I believe UA needs to add more flights out of EWR. For the past week or more we've seen flights out of EWR are averaging at least 75% to certain destinations some are even going out full as people in New York City or even New York state are looking to escape to other states that are open.

A lot of our hot spot destinations right now are the Carolina's, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Texas and for some reason California. Load factors are up and customers are finding their flights a lot fuller than they expected especially if they last checked the seating chart 4-7 days before departure. Customers who don't check the seat chart at least 48 hours out are in for a surprise when they get to the airport, if they are going to any of these destinations. UA is selling a lot of last minute seats hence the reason for upgrading certain routes 24-48 hours out.

jayunited wrote:

Nicknuzzii wrote:

I’d definitely be a slight bit on edge if I was UA and watching F9 at EWR. They started EWR service on Nov 14th and planned to fly to 16 destinations. They launched around 10 or so of the destinations and plan to continue in the future with 11 daily flights to 12 destinations. 3 of these routes, DEN, ORD, and RDU were never even flown before and are still scheduled to launch in June. DEN and ORD will fly seasonally in the summer and will alternate with PBI and PHX which will fly in the winter.

So why now should UA be concerned with F9’s presence at EWR. First, F9 doesn’t have much experience in the market but is already seeing numbers good enough to stay. Second, F9 is competing with UA on more than just leisure routes. DEN and ORD are both UA hubs and key markets. F9 is also taking a chance with RDU and PHX. Lastly, F9 came in quick the first time, why wouldn’t they do it again? Many are predicting a quicker return for leisure travel (My flight last week on F9 from EWR was about 90% full) compared to business travel. This is F9’s bread and butter.

Where do I see B6 at EWR? I agree with you that they will be at a near complete schedule by next spring. They did very well from EWR from what I heard and there was some pretty solid rumors they were considering expanding. It was a pretty positive sign that EWR was about equal to MCO at the end of June considering EWR was the hardest hit airport in the Nation.

I believe UA needs to add more flights out of EWR. For the past week or more we've seen flights out of EWR are averaging at least 75% to certain destinations some are even going out full as people in New York City or even New York state are looking to escape to other states that are open.

A lot of our hot spot destinations right now are the Carolina's, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Texas and for some reason California. Load factors are up and customers are finding their flights a lot fuller than they expected especially if they last checked the seating chart 4-7 days before departure. Customers who don't check the seat chart at least 48 hours out are in for a surprise when they get to the airport, if they are going to any of these destinations. UA is selling a lot of last minute seats hence the reason for upgrading certain routes 24-48 hours out.

I know there is a lot of flights supposed to come back online
around Wednesday. ATL, CLT, MCO, TPA amongst others are all scheduled to restart.

In the future I’m not so quick to say UA express will be as large as they were prior to this at EWR. I think United’s A concourse may have served it’s final flights. The split ops. would be very expensive to maintain and is the need really going to be there? Is UA planning on getting anywhere close to 425 flights from EWR in the near future? Furthermore, T1 is supposed to open up next year and UA has already committed to gates and a new club there but I’m sure the PANYNJ would do anything to help UA.. Lol.

I'd take the seat maps after departure as not being totally accurate. If you look at the maps for future slights, you'll see all the middle seats are "taken", which I think means blocked for social distancing. So the Y load factor may have up to 33% more seats shown occupied than reality and F might be 50% off as well. Of course, some of those middle seats may be occupied near or at departure (alternating windows/aisles in F). It look weird seeing a map with a nearly empty flight where all the middle seats are "sold", as they are blocked. If UA were to be more accurate, they would mark those seats with something like a "B" for blocked.

Nicknuzzii wrote:

I’d definitely be a slight bit on edge if I was UA and watching F9 at EWR. They started EWR service on Nov 14th and planned to fly to 16 destinations. They launched around 10 or so of the destinations and plan to continue in the future with 11 daily flights to 12 destinations. 3 of these routes, DEN, ORD, and RDU were never even flown before and are still scheduled to launch in June. DEN and ORD will fly seasonally in the summer and will alternate with PBI and PHX which will fly in the winter.

So why now should UA be concerned with F9’s presence at EWR. First, F9 doesn’t have much experience in the market but is already seeing numbers good enough to stay. Second, F9 is competing with UA on more than just leisure routes. DEN and ORD are both UA hubs and key markets. F9 is also taking a chance with RDU and PHX. Lastly, F9 came in quick the first time, why wouldn’t they do it again? Many are predicting a quicker return for leisure travel (My flight last week on F9 from EWR was about 90% full) compared to business travel. This is F9’s bread and butter.

That's what F9 does. It comes into a market with a lot of destinations to see what works and then runs away when things get hard. It's not a secret.
Take a look at this thread viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1444841
F9 already quit ONT/SDQ/STI/DFW out of EWR. EWR won't be the first airport F9 comes in with a bunch of market and then quits on most of them.

NK are a lot harder to get pushed out and will try to expand if they come out of this as an independent airline.

jayunited wrote:

I believe UA needs to add more flights out of EWR. For the past week or more we've seen flights out of EWR are averaging at least 75% to certain destinations some are even going out full as people in New York City or even New York state are looking to escape to other states that are open.

I think things are normalizing a little bit in NYC/NJ. A lot of people have COVID antibodies and others have seen a lot of people around them with COVID and with just mild symptoms. There are just less people afraid of COVID now. Demand out of NYC will take to recover, but UA may have cut too much. Their May capacity out of EWR is more appropriate for April demand.

A bit from tech ops VP update on Friday

I know we talk a lot about aircraft storage lately and just to put it in perspective, as of today, we have successfully placed over 410 aircraft in storage, or 93 percent of the mainline aircraft that are slated to enter the active or prolonged storage programs. It really is incredible when you think back to just a couple of months ago, when our fleet was busy traversing the globe and the prospect of having even a single aircraft out of service, just sitting on the ground, was something we did everything in our power to avoid. Endless hours of planning, coordination, communication and collaboration have gone into this enormous storage program and it’s amazing to see so many groups pull together to make it a success. Sure, we’ve stored aircraft in the past and have a defined process, but in reality, we’ve never experienced anything quite like this scale. Yet, if you take a step back and look at the professionalism and smoothness of this program so far, you would almost think that aircraft storage is something we handle on a daily basis.
Thankfully, storage isn’t our primary business, and I know we are all ready to get back to doing what we do best, which is flying!! To that end, I’m happy to report that we’ve seen enough demand for cargo that we’ve started bringing a few 787s out of storage. Last week we successfully returned one 787 to service and currently we are working on returning an additional four tails to the operation. We are also expanding cargo-only flights (cargo in the bins and closets) to the 777-200 and 767-300 fleets. The cargo demand is definitely encouraging, and I know we are all anxiously awaiting the demand for passenger flying to increase as well.


Based on his comments, about 440 mainline aircraft are slated to be parked to put scale on the enormous hit.

Upgaiging a few flights does not change the fact that airline is operating barely 10% of its pre Covid-19 planned schedule, and even then many flights are still below 50% load factor.

tphuang wrote:

Nicknuzzii wrote:

I’d definitely be a slight bit on edge if I was UA and watching F9 at EWR. They started EWR service on Nov 14th and planned to fly to 16 destinations. They launched around 10 or so of the destinations and plan to continue in the future with 11 daily flights to 12 destinations. 3 of these routes, DEN, ORD, and RDU were never even flown before and are still scheduled to launch in June. DEN and ORD will fly seasonally in the summer and will alternate with PBI and PHX which will fly in the winter.

So why now should UA be concerned with F9’s presence at EWR. First, F9 doesn’t have much experience in the market but is already seeing numbers good enough to stay. Second, F9 is competing with UA on more than just leisure routes. DEN and ORD are both UA hubs and key markets. F9 is also taking a chance with RDU and PHX. Lastly, F9 came in quick the first time, why wouldn’t they do it again? Many are predicting a quicker return for leisure travel (My flight last week on F9 from EWR was about 90% full) compared to business travel. This is F9’s bread and butter.

That's what F9 does. It comes into a market with a lot of destinations to see what works and then runs away when things get hard. It's not a secret.
Take a look at this thread viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1444841
F9 already quit ONT/SDQ/STI/DFW out of EWR. EWR won't be the first airport F9 comes in with a bunch of market and then quits on most of them.

NK are a lot harder to get pushed out and will try to expand if they come out of this as an independent airline.

You are comparing apples to oranges. If this wasn’t for Covid-19 F9 would be flying all these routes and doing so profitably. The sole reason F9 cut these routes was not to make a big splash in the market but because of the decreased travel demand. If these routes launched last year they would still be flying.

Schweigend wrote:

Yesterday afternoon, 17 May, I saw 753 N57857 at IAH gate E9 waiting for a scheduled MIA departure at 1900. Very unusual, I thought, since the 753s have been absent here for some time.

The publicly available post-departure seat chart for UA1005 showed the following load:

F 24 / 24
Y 128 / 210

Total = 152 / 234 = 65% LF

https://www.united.com/en/us/flightstat ... IAH/MIA/UA

It was encouraging to see the return of the 753, and also the nice load factor matching up with UA's new idea of going for a 70% LF when possible, to promote "social distancing".

This same aircraft is scheduled today to fly back from MIA to IAH as UA1007 at 06:20, currently showing a similar LF.

https://www.united.com/en/us/flightstat ... MIA/IAH/UA

The actual LF was 22/56 or 33% for yesterday. The return leg today was 5/50 or 24%. The public available view seating chart is accurate, but only if you know how and what to count.

LAXintl wrote:

Upgaiging a few flights does not change the fact that airline is operating barely 10% of its pre Covid-19 planned schedule, and even then many flights are still below 50% load factor.

Debbie Downer. It does offer a glimmer of hope though. I don't think anyone has even implied the airline is in the clear.

LAXintl wrote:

Upgaiging a few flights does not change the fact that airline is operating barely 10% of its pre Covid-19 planned schedule, and even then many flights are still below 50% load factor.

I appreciate that you are trying to Keep Perspective however people who’s lives are being up rooted are looking for any glimmer of hope they can grasp. Everyone knows it’s a shit sand which right now but if we can find something to wake up and be happy about for a minute it’s something.

adamblang wrote:

KLMatSJC wrote:

adamblang wrote:

From https://skift.com/2020/04/02/united-air ... snap-back/:

How will that affect the scope clause?

It won't. I don't see anything in the ALPA contract about 50-seat minimums (that would be odd) or ratios or anything in the AFA contract about 50-seat regional jets at all.

ALPA nor AFA have ever made any bones about 50 seat flying that I remember. Since many of those destinations mainline might not even fly and Pilots and FA's live. it might not serve them well to bust the chops of all UAX flying when many of them commute on it.

LAXintl wrote:

Upgaiging a few flights does not change the fact that airline is operating barely 10% of its pre Covid-19 planned schedule, and even then many flights are still below 50% load factor.

I appreciate your comments and you would be correct if we were to compare ORD's operation to EWR's operation, ORD's domestic load factor is still below 50% the same can not be said for domestic flights out of EWR to certain locations. Out of all of our hubs EWR is now UA's biggest challenge followed closely by SFO. I'm not saying United needs to add flights across the board at every hub but I do think UA needs to take a hard look at EWR and to a lesser extent SFO and either add or upgauge some flights because we are seeing leisure demand growing and these figures are supported by the TSA which has recorded a slow but steady rise in traffic for the past 3 weeks.

United talks about being flexible and responding to demand well here is their chance upgauging 24-48 hours out is a great start. I also agree with someone else who said UA may have cut to much from our EWR schedule for the month of May. Hopefully UA will take another look at our June schedule especially out of EWR. Demand for business travel may be close to zero but leisure travel to certain states which I've already mentioned is slowly coming back and flying a bunch of A319s is not enough capacity. I know the July schedule has not been finalized yet but if UA waits till July to add flights out of EWR as others have mentioned it may provide an opening to either NK and/or F9.

As far as cargo I was looking at the numbers yesterday and UA is killing it cargo wise. We've also operated our first HKG-SIN cargo charter, and our turn times have not increased greatly with us loading cargo in the cabin. On a recent ORD-LHR-ORD flight cargo was loaded in the cabin overhead bins and closets and it only took LHR ramp 1 hour to dump a full cabin and reload the overhead bins and closets for the return flight. I'm now hearing UA may move forward with loading cargo in the seats, so far no final decision has been made but based on the success we are seeing loading cargo in the overhead bins and closets I think it is only a matter of time before UA moves forward with loading cargo in the seats and netting it all down. Just a few weeks ago UA was only operating 40 cargo flights a week, today we are operating close to 200 flights per week and as LAXintl has pointed out more wide-bodies will be joining the effort.

jayunited wrote:

LAXintl wrote:

Upgaiging a few flights does not change the fact that airline is operating barely 10% of its pre Covid-19 planned schedule, and even then many flights are still below 50% load factor.

I appreciate your comments and you would be correct if we were to compare ORD's operation to EWR's operation, ORD's domestic load factor is still below 50% the same can not be said for domestic flights out of EWR to certain locations. Out of all of our hubs EWR is now UA's biggest challenge followed closely by SFO. I'm not saying United needs to add flights across the board at every hub but I do think UA needs to take a hard look at EWR and to a lesser extent SFO and either add or upgauge some flights because we are seeing leisure demand growing and these figures are supported by the TSA which has recorded a slow but steady rise in traffic for the past 3 weeks.

United talks about being flexible and responding to demand well here is their chance upgauging 24-48 hours out is a great start. I also agree with someone else who said UA may have cut to much from our EWR schedule for the month of May. Hopefully UA will take another look at our June schedule especially out of EWR. Demand for business travel may be close to zero but leisure travel to certain states which I've already mentioned is slowly coming back and flying a bunch of A319s is not enough capacity. I know the July schedule has not been finalized yet but if UA waits till July to add flights out of EWR as others have mentioned it may provide an opening to either NK and/or F9.

As far as cargo I was looking at the numbers yesterday and UA is killing it cargo wise. We've also operated our first HKG-SIN cargo charter, and our turn times have not increased greatly with us loading cargo in the cabin. On a recent ORD-LHR-ORD flight cargo was loaded in the cabin overhead bins and closets and it only took LHR ramp 1 hour to dump a full cabin and reload the overhead bins and closets for the return flight. I'm now hearing UA may move forward with loading cargo in the seats, so far no final decision has been made but based on the success we are seeing loading cargo in the overhead bins and closets I think it is only a matter of time before UA moves forward with loading cargo in the seats and netting it all down. Just a few weeks ago UA was only operating 40 cargo flights a week, today we are operating close to 200 flights per week and as LAXintl has pointed out more wide-bodies will be joining the effort.

I did notice that UA moved up IAH-AMS re-start date from November to September. Im guessing theyre seeing some demand return on specific routes like that?

The fleet changes, fleet status, and repaint status posts at the start of this thread have been updated.

There is also a post dedicated to keeping track of stored mainline aircraft.

✈️ atcsundevil

United will run 25% of their July schedule. UA execs also noted that cancellations are done and booking have slightly improved.

Nicknuzzii wrote:

United will run 25% of their July schedule. UA execs also noted that cancellations are done and booking have slightly improved.

This news, although not the 100% schedule operation that everybody wants, is still good and positive news. I cant find this information though so I hope you're right.