United Fleet, Network, & Livery Thread - 2020

VirginFlyer · Thu May 21, 2020 7:11 am

FlyHossD wrote:
Max Q wrote:
FlyHossD wrote:

Yes. I believe the last delivery was about 2 or 3 months ago (N2352U).

Thanks for that, is that 22 airframes altogether?

Yes, 22 777-322s for UAL. Seems like they're getting good use these days flying cargo in the bellies (primarily in the bellies anyway). I rode on one of them SFO to AUK about a year ago which was a good flight and the beginning of a great trip to New Zealand (great people, great country).

This spreadsheet might be useful to you; check on the different types across the bottom: https://sites.google.com/site/unitedfle ... t-tracking

I hope they flew you to AKL and not AUK! Looking forward to seeing more North American 777s and 787s in Auckland before too long.

V/F

fun2fly · Thu May 21, 2020 10:30 am

One think I was thinking of is how creative are airlines going to have to get to fill the LHR slots when the exemptions expire? Will we see UA LHR routes from cities that didn't have one in the past because, for example, UA may not need 6x daily from EWR? Will they move those around the hubs or perhaps a one off route?

Max Q · Thu May 21, 2020 11:58 am

FlyHossD wrote:
Max Q wrote:
FlyHossD wrote:

Yes. I believe the last delivery was about 2 or 3 months ago (N2352U).

Thanks for that, is that 22 airframes altogether?

Yes, 22 777-322s for UAL. Seems like they're getting good use these days flying cargo in the bellies (primarily in the bellies anyway). I rode on one of them SFO to AUK about a year ago which was a good flight and the beginning of a great trip to New Zealand (great people, great country).

This spreadsheet might be useful to you; check on the different types across the bottom: https://sites.google.com/site/unitedfle ... t-tracking

Thanks for the information

United1 · Thu May 21, 2020 1:00 pm

fun2fly wrote:
One think I was thinking of is how creative are airlines going to have to get to fill the LHR slots when the exemptions expire? Will we see UA LHR routes from cities that didn't have one in the past because, for example, UA may not need 6x daily from EWR? Will they move those around the hubs or perhaps a one off route?

I would imagine if travel is still depressed when the exceptions expire there will be an extension.

tphuang · Thu May 21, 2020 1:01 pm

atcsundevil wrote:
cosyr wrote:
atcsundevil wrote:
Downgrading EWR would effectively mean abandoning the New York market. There is a 0% chance that happens. LAX is a totally different situation. United controls EWR, and that will have to be pried from their cold, dead hands.

I feel like the definition of hub and focus city will change for all airlines for the next two years. I don't see UA ceding any market share to AA and DL. If demand picks up faster than their current plans, UA will expand LAX at a similar pace.

Certainly. EWR hardly looks like a UA hub operating 42 flights per day, when three months ago they were averaging that many flights per day. It'll be a very long time before most hub airports begin to look like hubs again. I fully expect to see some fairly significant impacts across the networks of every airline, but I have zero expectation of UA ceding any ground on their position in New York. They will lose whatever amount of money it takes to maintain their position, because their long term future is dependent on it. Their absence at JFK already puts them at a relative disadvantage to their competitors (albeit more a efficient arrangement), so they'll need to maintain their presence at all costs.

I would look at it this way. UA has been the most conservative airline amongst big 4 in terms of flying. That is not a surprise given it's dependence on international widebody flying and it's large debt load prior to start of this crisis. Due to its high TPAC exposure, it also got hit the earliest. Kirby has been very aggressive at lowering cash burn by basically cutting all expenses and not flying. It seems to me based on the recent 76 to 70 seater conversion, they are planning for a massive furlough of pilots after Sep 30. Probably bigger than DL and AA. We also know about the 30% reduction in M&A staff. And they were never as overstaffed as AA to begin with. So they must be doing this with the expectation that they will be a lot smaller coming out of this.

DL just told their pilots yesterday that they expect to be running a little less than 75% of their pre-COVID schedule by end of 2021 and that yields will be garbage until 2022 and will be below 2019 levels until probably 2023/2024. Given the slow recovery of TPAC/TATL market vs domestic and Kirby's larger layoffs, I would expect UA to be bringing back flying even slower than that. my guess is that they will be running at most at 70% pre-COVID schedule by end of 2021 and probably 60 to 65% schedule by Q3 of 2021. They probably won't get back to pre-COVID size until 2025. I don't think any of this is unreasonable assumptions.

So just thinking of running a 65% schedule for fall of 2021, which stations come back sooner. I would think that the mid-continental domestic hubs (DEN/ORD) get brought back sooner, whereas the coastal ones that relies a lot on international flying will come back slower and require consolidation. That's probably why Kirby said he doesn't expect international flying out of LAX this year. My guess is they will consolidate on the west coastal international stuff to go through SFO for a while. Otherwise, what's going to happen to SFO? You can either run like a 60% schedule at SFO and LAX or a 70% schedule at SFO and 45% schedule at LAX. It seems like SFO is a far larger priority for them, so LAX will be under 100 flights a day for a long time imo. And on the east coastal, EWR is their main TATL, TPAC and Latin America hub on the east coast. Again, IAD will be smaller since nobody else is going to make a move there, but it's hard for me to imagine EWR not be a lot smaller given the reduction in 6+ hours international flying demand. With less international flying and reduction in really small RJs, I think it will lead to much fewer feed flights in short term. I don't remember how many flights EWR had pre-COVID but I think it's around 500 or more? I would be surprised if UA is runing more than 350 flights a day out of EWR by end of 2021. And it's going to be hard to get back to pre-COVID level of flights until international demand comes back close to pre-COVID level.

Nicknuzzii · Thu May 21, 2020 1:17 pm

tphuang wrote:
atcsundevil wrote:
cosyr wrote:
I feel like the definition of hub and focus city will change for all airlines for the next two years. I don't see UA ceding any market share to AA and DL. If demand picks up faster than their current plans, UA will expand LAX at a similar pace.

Certainly. EWR hardly looks like a UA hub operating 42 flights per day, when three months ago they were averaging that many flights per day. It'll be a very long time before most hub airports begin to look like hubs again. I fully expect to see some fairly significant impacts across the networks of every airline, but I have zero expectation of UA ceding any ground on their position in New York. They will lose whatever amount of money it takes to maintain their position, because their long term future is dependent on it. Their absence at JFK already puts them at a relative disadvantage to their competitors (albeit more a efficient arrangement), so they'll need to maintain their presence at all costs.

I would look at it this way. UA has been the most conservative airline amongst big 4 in terms of flying. That is not a surprise given it's dependence on international widebody flying and it's large debt load prior to start of this crisis. Due to its high TPAC exposure, it also got hit the earliest. Kirby has been very aggressive at lowering cash burn by basically cutting all expenses and not flying. It seems to me based on the recent 76 to 70 seater conversion, they are planning for a massive furlough of pilots after Sep 30. Probably bigger than DL and AA. We also know about the 30% reduction in M&A staff. And they were never as overstaffed as AA to begin with. So they must be doing this with the expectation that they will be a lot smaller coming out of this.

DL just told their pilots yesterday that they expect to be running a little less than 75% of their pre-COVID schedule by end of 2021 and that yields will be garbage until 2022 and will be below 2019 levels until probably 2023/2024. Given the slow recovery of TPAC/TATL market vs domestic and Kirby's larger layoffs, I would expect UA to be bringing back flying even slower than that. my guess is that they will be running at most at 70% pre-COVID schedule by end of 2021 and probably 60 to 65% schedule by Q3 of 2021. They probably won't get back to pre-COVID size until 2025. I don't think any of this is unreasonable assumptions.

So just thinking of running a 65% schedule for fall of 2021, which stations come back sooner. I would think that the mid-continental domestic hubs (DEN/ORD) get brought back sooner, whereas the coastal ones that relies a lot on international flying will come back slower and require consolidation. That's probably why Kirby said he doesn't expect international flying out of LAX this year. My guess is they will consolidate on the west coastal international stuff to go through SFO for a while. Otherwise, what's going to happen to SFO? You can either run like a 60% schedule at SFO and LAX or a 70% schedule at SFO and 45% schedule at LAX. It seems like SFO is a far larger priority for them, so LAX will be under 100 flights a day for a long time imo. And on the east coastal, EWR is their main TATL, TPAC and Latin America hub on the east coast. Again, IAD will be smaller since nobody else is going to make a move there, but it's hard for me to imagine EWR not be a lot smaller given the reduction in 6+ hours international flying demand. With less international flying and reduction in really small RJs, I think it will lead to much fewer feed flights in short term. I don't remember how many flights EWR had pre-COVID but I think it's around 500 or more? I would be surprised if UA is runing more than 350 flights a day out of EWR by end of 2021. And it's going to be hard to get back to pre-COVID level of flights until international demand comes back close to pre-COVID level.

I think UA will be around 85-90% of it’s pre Covid schedule by the end of 2021. By that point the economy should be doing much better. The virus should be behind us but if not won’t it become a familiarity with everyone? Furthermore, for the very small group of people claiming they won’t fly until there is a vaccine, how long could they hold out?

UA has kept EWR pretty much steady in the number of flights per day at EWR at around 415 ish. Almost all of EWR’s growth comes from larger aircraft rather than regional jets. I myself also agree that UA won’t be running more than 350 flights a day from EWR. Maybe not even 300. But would other carriers be willing to come fill the void?

Pi7472000 · Thu May 21, 2020 1:22 pm

It seems so hard to even be predicting schedule levels for the fall and winter. If a second wave returns and the economy totally shuts down again except for essential services it seems we could have a repeat of April and May. I would hope they are taking those models into account. Even though a vaccine is not a cure, a safe effective vaccine seems to be what it may take to help UA to have better models to predict long term traffic patterns.

codc10 · Thu May 21, 2020 1:24 pm

tphuang wrote:
Kirby has been very aggressive at lowering cash burn by basically cutting all expenses and not flying. It seems to me based on the recent 76 to 70 seater conversion, they are planning for a massive furlough of pilots after Sep 30. Probably bigger than DL and AA. We also know about the 30% reduction in M&A staff. And they were never as overstaffed as AA to begin with. So they must be doing this with the expectation that they will be a lot smaller coming out of this.

Kirby has been 100% growth since he walked in the door, outpacing the rest of the industry, and most resources went into the domestic market, while continuing an international expansion program. So I don't think there's precedent to suggest United under Scott Kirby as CEO will suddenly turn into a conservative, "capacity discipline" manager in the post-COVID environment. He's already on the record saying he wants to position the company to "leapfrog" competitors during the recovery, and by that I assume he would be targeting AA, in the main... especially if AA finds itself in another reorganization.

As for the 76 to 70 seaters, here is the provision from the UPA:

1-C-1-h Effect of Furlough
If a Pilot on the Seniority List with an employment date prior to the date of signing of this
Agreement is placed on furlough, the Company shall convert all 76-Seat Aircraft for
operation as 70-Seat Aircraft. The number of such aircraft shall continue to be limited as
though they were being operated as 76-Seat Aircraft. The Company may again commence
operating such Aircraft as 76-Seat Aircraft effective on the date that the most junior Pilot
protected by the first sentence of this Section 1-C-1-h is recalled from furlough.

tphuang · Thu May 21, 2020 1:38 pm

codc10 wrote:
tphuang wrote:
Kirby has been very aggressive at lowering cash burn by basically cutting all expenses and not flying. It seems to me based on the recent 76 to 70 seater conversion, they are planning for a massive furlough of pilots after Sep 30. Probably bigger than DL and AA. We also know about the 30% reduction in M&A staff. And they were never as overstaffed as AA to begin with. So they must be doing this with the expectation that they will be a lot smaller coming out of this.

Kirby has been 100% growth since he walked in the door, outpacing the rest of the industry, and most resources went into the domestic market, while continuing an international expansion program. So I don't think there's precedent to suggest United under Scott Kirby as CEO will suddenly turn into a conservative, "capacity discipline" manager in the post-COVID environment. He's already on the record saying he wants to position the company to "leapfrog" competitors during the recovery, and by that I assume he would be targeting AA, in the main... especially if AA finds itself in another reorganization.

As for the 76 to 70 seaters, here is the provision from the UPA:

1-C-1-h Effect of Furlough
If a Pilot on the Seniority List with an employment date prior to the date of signing of this
Agreement is placed on furlough, the Company shall convert all 76-Seat Aircraft for
operation as 70-Seat Aircraft. The number of such aircraft shall continue to be limited as
though they were being operated as 76-Seat Aircraft. The Company may again commence
operating such Aircraft as 76-Seat Aircraft effective on the date that the most junior Pilot
protected by the first sentence of this Section 1-C-1-h is recalled from furlough.

That is true, but Kirby has been doing what he thinks is the right move for UA. Back when he first started, he realized the problem with UA was lack of domestic network on connections, so he started the strategy of building up DEN/ORD/IAH. All of that worked out really well. This time, he has identified cash preservation and survival as the most important move for UA. His moves so far have imo shown that's the strategy for a while. And he has been the most conservative at adding back capacity. Saying many times that UA will only add back capacity when demand comes back. Which is why given the 76 to 70 seaters ( read the seniority list is about 2300 pilot up to the last contract date of Jan 23 2016), I'm thinking it's a good indication that UA is looking to have pilot staff of about 35% smaller. It's going to take a long time to recall/retrain all the pilots afterward.

If EWR was at 415 flights prior to COVID, then I'd be surprised if they are at 300 flights a day by end of 2021.

LAXdude1023 · Thu May 21, 2020 1:47 pm

tphuang wrote:
atcsundevil wrote:
cosyr wrote:

So just thinking of running a 65% schedule for fall of 2021, which stations come back sooner. I would think that the mid-continental domestic hubs (DEN/ORD) get brought back sooner, whereas the coastal ones that relies a lot on international flying will come back slower and require consolidation. That's probably why Kirby said he doesn't expect international flying out of LAX this year. My guess is they will consolidate on the west coastal international stuff to go through SFO for a while. Otherwise, what's going to happen to SFO? You can either run like a 60% schedule at SFO and LAX or a 70% schedule at SFO and 45% schedule at LAX. It seems like SFO is a far larger priority for them, so LAX will be under 100 flights a day for a long time imo. And on the east coastal, EWR is their main TATL, TPAC and Latin America hub on the east coast. Again, IAD will be smaller since nobody else is going to make a move there, but it's hard for me to imagine EWR not be a lot smaller given the reduction in 6+ hours international flying demand. With less international flying and reduction in really small RJs, I think it will lead to much fewer feed flights in short term. I don't remember how many flights EWR had pre-COVID but I think it's around 500 or more? I would be surprised if UA is runing more than 350 flights a day out of EWR by end of 2021. And it's going to be hard to get back to pre-COVID level of flights until international demand comes back close to pre-COVID level.

I think thats a pretty accurate synopsis. You didnt mention IAH and since its my home airport Ill comment on what I think is realistic.

-Non-Latin Long Haul flying limited to LHR, AMS, FRA, and NRT.
-All Latin destinations remain with the possible exception of some smaller Mexican routes
-Domestic flying will bounce back sooner but at lower levels than previous years. Domestic flying at DEN and ORD will probably come back a bit quicker.

MIflyer12 · Thu May 21, 2020 1:51 pm

fun2fly wrote:
One think I was thinking of is how creative are airlines going to have to get to fill the LHR slots when the exemptions expire? Will we see UA LHR routes from cities that didn't have one in the past because, for example, UA may not need 6x daily from EWR? Will they move those around the hubs or perhaps a one off route?

Rephrase your question: What market is better than NYC (for prospective passenger counts and avg fares) for flights to London? They have the power of the EWR hub. They're going to need to maintain EWR-LHR frequency to compete with AA/BA and DL/VS(?).

codc10 · Thu May 21, 2020 1:55 pm

tphuang wrote:
And he has been the most conservative at adding back capacity. Saying many times that UA will only add back capacity when demand comes back.

Has that actually proven to be the case (that UA is more conservative in adding back capacity than others)? It seems that, as of now, AA and DL are around 12-15% of original (pre-covid) capacity. July will be at a 25% schedule; that's already been guided. I can't see DL or AA being any more aggressive in this respect. Even Southwest is acknowledging the need for dramatic changes by the end of the year *if* demand does not return.

On the Wolfe call a few days ago, in response to a question about recovery, Nocella said they forecast the local markets in United hubs will be the earliest to return, suggesting United would like to quickly ramp service back up. I don't think aggressiveness of cutting in response to the pandemic necessarily signals a conservative approach to recovery. As it turns out, the 'worst-case-scenario' originally forecast (to great shock) by Kirby turned out to be even more optimistic than what ultimately played out. I also question the apparent conventional wisdom that United will return slower, and come out of the crisis comparatively smaller, than its direct competitors. Everything coming from United leadership suggests otherwise.

qf789 · Thu May 21, 2020 2:00 pm

United 737MAX9 N27526 positioned MWH-RNT, its first flight since 18 September last year when the aircraft positioned to MWH for storage

https://twitter.com/AirportWebcams/stat ... 36609?s=20

STT757 · Thu May 21, 2020 2:02 pm

The thing about EWR that people are missing is that they assume UA's domestic operation exists to feed the International. It's the other way around. EWR is a mostly O&D domestic hub for UA and before them CO and before them PE. UA handles more domestic passengers from EWR than B6 and AA combined at EWR, Kennedy and LGA combined. They are slightly behind DL who has 32 million domestic passengers from EWR, Kennedy and LGA vs. UA's 30.5 million domestic passengers from just EWR. EWR has a higher percentage of O&D traffic vs. Kennedy (75.3% EWR, 70.1% Kennedy).

The EWR hub has for most of it's life been a domestic hub which served the large O&D market. Just look back at some of the old schedules:

http://www.departedflights.com/CO103094p33.html

http://www.departedflights.com/CO020187p17.html

http://www.departedflights.com/PE062685p37.html

tphuang · Thu May 21, 2020 2:04 pm

codc10 wrote:
tphuang wrote:
And he has been the most conservative at adding back capacity. Saying many times that UA will only add back capacity when demand comes back.

Has that actually proven to be the case (that UA is more conservative in adding back capacity than others)? It seems that, as of now, AA and DL are around 12-15% of original (pre-covid) capacity. July will be at a 25% schedule; that's already been guided. I can't see DL or AA being any more aggressive in this respect. Even Southwest is acknowledging the need for dramatic changes by the end of the year *if* demand does not return.

On the Wolfe call a few days ago, in response to a question about recovery, Nocella said they forecast the local markets in United hubs will be the earliest to return, suggesting United would like to quickly ramp service back up. I don't think aggressiveness in cutting in response to the pandemic necessarily signals a conservative approach to recovery. I also question the apparent conventional wisdom that United will return slower, and come out of the crisis comparatively smaller, than its direct competitors. Everything coming from United leadership suggests otherwise.

All the charts have shown that UA has cut the most and AA the least amongst the major carriers. AA is currently flying over 20% of their schedule and probably closer to 25% in June. DL is close to 20% for June and 25% for July. So by July, DL and UA will be flying close to the same portion of pre-COVID schedule. My guess is WN will be over 50% of their schedule by July/August. Again, I'm making estimations on their capacity next year based on their network breakdown and also their work force reduction. It's hard for me to see UA bringing capacity back sooner than DL based on their current moves.

Btw, I'm not criticizing UA for their cuts. what Kirby has done will save them from having to file BK. Coming into this, UA faced possibly the most adversity from this due to its high debt load, large widebody fleet and high exposure to international flying.

codc10 · Thu May 21, 2020 2:25 pm

tphuang wrote:
codc10 wrote:
tphuang wrote:
And he has been the most conservative at adding back capacity. Saying many times that UA will only add back capacity when demand comes back.

Has that actually proven to be the case (that UA is more conservative in adding back capacity than others)? It seems that, as of now, AA and DL are around 12-15% of original (pre-covid) capacity. July will be at a 25% schedule; that's already been guided. I can't see DL or AA being any more aggressive in this respect. Even Southwest is acknowledging the need for dramatic changes by the end of the year *if* demand does not return.

On the Wolfe call a few days ago, in response to a question about recovery, Nocella said they forecast the local markets in United hubs will be the earliest to return, suggesting United would like to quickly ramp service back up. I don't think aggressiveness in cutting in response to the pandemic necessarily signals a conservative approach to recovery. I also question the apparent conventional wisdom that United will return slower, and come out of the crisis comparatively smaller, than its direct competitors. Everything coming from United leadership suggests otherwise.

All the charts have shown that UA has cut the most and AA the least amongst the major carriers. AA is currently flying over 20% of their schedule and probably closer to 25% in June. DL is close to 20% for June and 25% for July. So by July, DL and UA will be flying close to the same portion of pre-COVID schedule. My guess is WN will be over 50% of their schedule by July/August. Again, I'm making estimations on their capacity next year based on their network breakdown and also their work force reduction. It's hard for me to see UA bringing capacity back sooner than DL based on their current moves.

Btw, I'm not criticizing UA for their cuts. what Kirby has done will save them from having to file BK. Coming into this, UA faced possibly the most adversity from this due to its high debt load, large widebody fleet and high exposure to international flying.

It will be interesting to see how things play out, and, as I've discussed in other threads, I don't think it's reasonable to extrapolate long-term strategies from crisis-mode April/May 2020 schedules. But if we are going to take representations of airline management at face value, it would appear (and this is demonstrated by track record) that this management team is far more growth-oriented than previous groups, evidenced by speaking publicly about attempting to regain market share during the COVID-19 recovery. I would expect United, under Scott Kirby, to be anything but conservative. That's really not in his DNA.

FlyHossD · Thu May 21, 2020 5:19 pm

jayunited wrote:
When you say the 757s and 767s are junior at UA I'm not sure I fully understand what you are comparing them to. Are you comparing them to the 777 and 787s or are you comparing them to the A320/19 and 737s? Also when is a junior person no longer consider junior? Personally I (although not a pilot) no longer considered myself junior once I hit 10 years seniority.

The 767s were not junior at all depending on the hub a pilot needed a good 13-15 years of seniority to get on the 767. The 764s were not junior at all a 764 pilot was paid the same hourly rate at a 777 pilot. For pilots who loved international flying but did not want to fly long haul and ultra long haul routes the 763 and 764 fleet were their go to fleet types especially the 764s simple because of the pay. It was always interesting walking through pilot crew scheduling anytime there was an open 764 trip pilots were all over it some trying to drop their 763 line to pick up a 764 line.

Longevity and Seniority are not the same thing. For example, if a pilot was hired 10 years ago and no more pilots were hired, that (same) pilot would be junior - indeed, the junior most pilot at the company.

jayunited wrote:
The 767s were not junior at all depending on the hub a pilot needed a good 13-15 years of seniority to get on the 767.

The last few years there have been new-hires going straight to the right seat of the 756 fleet at UA.

AVENSAB727 · Thu May 21, 2020 5:57 pm

LAXdude1023 wrote:
tphuang wrote:
atcsundevil wrote:

I think thats a pretty accurate synopsis. You didnt mention IAH and since its my home airport Ill comment on what I think is realistic.

-Non-Latin Long Haul flying limited to LHR, AMS, FRA, and NRT.
-All Latin destinations remain with the possible exception of some smaller Mexican routes
-Domestic flying will bounce back sooner but at lower levels than previous years. Domestic flying at DEN and ORD will probably come back a bit quicker.

Pretty spot on, but SYD resumes on 23 Oct, MUC on July 6.

LGeneReese · Thu May 21, 2020 9:19 pm

AVENSAB727 wrote:
LAXdude1023 wrote:
tphuang wrote:

I think thats a pretty accurate synopsis. You didnt mention IAH and since its my home airport Ill comment on what I think is realistic.

-Non-Latin Long Haul flying limited to LHR, AMS, FRA, and NRT.
-All Latin destinations remain with the possible exception of some smaller Mexican routes
-Domestic flying will bounce back sooner but at lower levels than previous years. Domestic flying at DEN and ORD will probably come back a bit quicker.

Pretty spot on, but SYD resumes on 23 Oct, MUC on July 6.

..... subject to change of course..... probably several changes.....

LAXintl · Thu May 21, 2020 9:27 pm

Some color from VP of Flt Ops about demand and schedule outlook.

Many of you have written about a competitor who is adding 100 flights and you are asking about what we are doing. One metric I like to track is the TSA passenger throughput. You can see for yourself that traffic, unfortunately, is still incredibly low. On May 19 for example, only 190,477 passengers passed through TSA checkpoints compared to 2,312,727 on the same day last year. We are seeing very minor improvements, but the improvements are painfully slow. There were days in March and April where we saw fewer than 10,000 passengers fly on United aircraft. Yesterday we carried a total of 32,417 passengers with 28,043 revenue passengers, 1,008 positive space travelers and 3,366 NRSA travelers. Last year at this time we would have carried well over 500,000 passengers daily. The good news is that in July our schedule is planned to be down about 75% down vs. the 90% reduced schedule we will fly in May and June. We will seek to add flying back in a responsible way that allows us to add capacity where it makes sense, but also allows us to be laser focused on cost to reduce our daily cash burn.

.... basically don't look for UA to add blanket capacity. Focus on filing existing flying and minimizing cash burn is the priority.

jayunited · Thu May 21, 2020 9:36 pm

tphuang wrote:
All the charts have shown that UA has cut the most and AA the least amongst the major carriers. AA is currently flying over 20% of their schedule and probably closer to 25% in June. DL is close to 20% for June and 25% for July. So by July, DL and UA will be flying close to the same portion of pre-COVID schedule. My guess is WN will be over 50% of their schedule by July/August. Again, I'm making estimations on their capacity next year based on their network breakdown and also their work force reduction. It's hard for me to see UA bringing capacity back sooner than DL based on their current moves.

Btw, I'm not criticizing UA for their cuts. what Kirby has done will save them from having to file BK. Coming into this, UA faced possibly the most adversity from this due to its high debt load, large widebody fleet and high exposure to international flying.

I agree I think Kirby did what was necessary to save United Airlines from bankruptcy. There is no question heading into this crisis of the US3 and WN UA the most exposure with the largest international network and the smallest domestic network. Since a majority of our international network has been grounded UA had to be aggressive and cut domestic capacity down to 10% because the international traffic that we shuffled around the domestic network simply wasn't there. As a matter of fact for about 3 weeks DEN became UA largest hub.

Kirby is an aggressive guy, I don't expect him to back down from this challenge but the challenge he faces here at UA at this moment is how gain domestic marketshare utilizing the fleet we have. Even with both AA and DL announcing the retirement of small portion of their narrow-body fleet their remaining narrow-body fleet is still larger than UA's narrow-body fleet. I know Kirby wants to use this crisis to grow UA domestic footprint but how to get there using our current fleet is the problem he and his team have to figure out.

As far as our hubs go of our interior hubs (ORD, IAH, DEN) UA will look at growing the fastest is DEN. United does not want to loose ground to WN at DEN. Kirby has fought hard to grow DEN, when he joined UA DEN was around 320 departures that was during the summer. Last summer UA reached 500 daily departures during the summer. Kirby nows UA has to be ready for a fight. I think out of all our hubs UA biggest fight will be at DEN. Domestic growth is what fueled UA's growth at DEN, while other hubs depended on a mixture of international and domestic growth, UA growth at DEN was totally fuel by domestic traffic. Both LHR and FRA came about after UA was well on it way to 500 daily summer time flights. Domestic traffic will come back before international traffic getting DEN back in the game will be key.

calpsafltskeds · Fri May 22, 2020 12:06 am

Looking at domestic services, I was thinking it would be great if UA could start a new hub if some airlines falter as UA has plenty of equipment and personnel. Many say UA has a hole in the SE, but I really don't see a golden hub opportunity anywhere. The closest choices would be FLL or MCO, but that would take an airline like Sprirt, Frontier or Jet Blue to get into real trouble. Possibly WN will reassess some of its focus cities. I would hope UA is keeping up on the possibilities of opportunities due to airline failures and/or reductions. Also, some of the LLCs are pretty quick to reassign aircraft and could be trying to pick off some markets.

Many thought there would be possible consolidation in the industry during this crisis, but it seems like its gone silent recently. Does anyone know if HA, JB, AS are more trouble than the Big 3/WN? Could the LLCs consolidate into one airline and become a major player? They all have Airbus equipment (Spirit/Frontier/Allegiant).

UA444 · Fri May 22, 2020 1:44 am

Only airlines I see going down the tubes are NK, G4 (good riddance), and AA going through a restructuring. AS is pretty strong financially last I checked, and B6 wasn’t doing terribly

tphuang · Fri May 22, 2020 12:26 pm

I think UA's biggest challenge coming out of this is defending its hubs. Especially DEN, it will be in an uphill fight with WN who has all the money in the world to sustain a loss leading operation to gain market share. I would not be surprised if they buy out F9 to just get their gates at DEN. Remember, UA will also face WN pressure in the bay area, chicago and houston. UA's biggest challenge all across the country is a WN with a war chest of cash and very little debt.

When it comes to SE, I think FLL/MIA is not a great idea, but it will certainly be more open. AA I think will be a lot smaller at MIA given their weak financial position and slow return of deep south America flying. FLL will be quite open since both B6 and WN are likely to focus on bringing back other cities first. I don't think it makes sense for a legacy to build up at a primarily LCC airport. There will be plenty of space at MIA if they wanted to attempt it. I doubt they will. I don't see NK and F9 both remaining independent after this. Either they merge with each other or get taken over by WN or B6.

Does it really make sense for UA to buy an airline for narrowbody aircraft when used aircraft will be widely available at low cost from all the downsized airlines around the world?

fun2fly · Fri May 22, 2020 12:54 pm

tphuang wrote:
I think UA's biggest challenge coming out of this is defending its hubs. Especially DEN, it will be in an uphill fight with WN who has all the money in the world to sustain a loss leading operation to gain market share. I would not be surprised if they buy out F9 to just get their gates at DEN. Remember, UA will also face WN pressure in the bay area, chicago and houston. UA's biggest challenge all across the country is a WN with a war chest of cash and very little debt.

When it comes to SE, I think FLL/MIA is not a great idea, but it will certainly be more open. AA I think will be a lot smaller at MIA given their weak financial position and slow return of deep south America flying. FLL will be quite open since both B6 and WN are likely to focus on bringing back other cities first. I don't think it makes sense for a legacy to build up at a primarily LCC airport. There will be plenty of space at MIA if they wanted to attempt it. I doubt they will. I don't see NK and F9 both remaining independent after this. Either they merge with each other or get taken over by WN or B6.

Does it really make sense for UA to buy an airline for narrowbody aircraft when used aircraft will be widely available at low cost from all the downsized airlines around the world?

I know it's only one O&D, but I'm booking a few trips on CLE>DEN and I'm a 1mm on UA so I rarely even look at WN, but this time I did. For both trips, WN is $198 and $240 RT each way and UA is $388 (plus an unreliable schedule in June still shows 4x daily). On some level, you need to be "close" on price and then also have a reliable schedule. Undoubtedly, UA will lose some share in the short term (Q2) primarily because they are not really flying vs. WN who is flying more. Come Q3, we'll see. I agree, UA will be in a dog fight in DEN.

jayunited · Fri May 22, 2020 12:55 pm

A glimmer of hope for some junior United flight attendants.

Its no secret UA has a lot of senior FA's with 30, 40, 50 even 60 years seniority still working for the company. However many of those FA's have taken voluntary leave in fact out of more that 24,000 FA's at least 12,000 have taken voluntary leave. One of my long time friends has 28 years he has taken 6 months off and he has told me many of his senior (yes even with 28 years there are a ton of FA's with more seniority than him) coworkers are inquiring if they can extend their leave to a year or more they simply don't want to fly until this crisis is over.

At first I dismissed his claims but in a Business Insider article Kirbys mentioned UA may not have to furlough a single flight attendant because in a world where demand is down 50%, UA already has 50% of our FA's on voluntary leave. So perhaps UA is considering extending voluntary leave for FA's beyond 6 months. While this is may be good new for junior FA's, it's not good news for IAM represented employees. UA still has not reach any agreement with the IAM and that work group has one the lowest participation rates in any of UA's voluntary programs. According to Kirby furloughing employees would help get UA through this crisis but at the same time it would make a snap back difficult. But temporarily reducing IAM represented employees hours would save a lot of jobs and UA would restores those hours as demand returns. I still have a lot of friends at ORD on the ramp and C.S. I'm not sure they will go for this even if it means more people keeping their job. I'm also hearing the number of dispatchers facing furlough might drop do to retirements.

What is clear is this Kirby wants United Airlines ready to go as demand returns how does he achieve that goal while avoiding labor disputes is going to be key.

https://www.businessinsider.com/united- ... urs-2020-5

cosyr · Fri May 22, 2020 1:00 pm

tphuang wrote:
I think UA's biggest challenge coming out of this is defending its hubs. Especially DEN, it will be in an uphill fight with WN who has all the money in the world to sustain a loss leading operation to gain market share. I would not be surprised if they buy out F9 to just get their gates at DEN. Remember, UA will also face WN pressure in the bay area, chicago and houston. UA's biggest challenge all across the country is a WN with a war chest of cash and very little debt.

When it comes to SE, I think FLL/MIA is not a great idea, but it will certainly be more open. AA I think will be a lot smaller at MIA given their weak financial position and slow return of deep south America flying. FLL will be quite open since both B6 and WN are likely to focus on bringing back other cities first. I don't think it makes sense for a legacy to build up at a primarily LCC airport. There will be plenty of space at MIA if they wanted to attempt it. I doubt they will. I don't see NK and F9 both remaining independent after this. Either they merge with each other or get taken over by WN or B6.

Does it really make sense for UA to buy an airline for narrowbody aircraft when used aircraft will be widely available at low cost from all the downsized airlines around the world?

I've thought for a long time that if UA were ever to try a focus city (which they seem to have no interest in, so this is just spitballing) BNA would be a great opportunity. The city has been growing steadily, and property values continue to increase. Also for UA, it is equidistant between IAH and IAD. UA doesn't need a MIA type hub. They have IAH for Latin America. If they need a SE hub or focus city, it would serve as more of CLT type hub with domestic connections and a few flights to Europe based on O&D demand. I think UA should pursue it now, and start building a customer base there, like DL is doing in RDU.

Most of UA's hubs are in large and prosperous cities, but Houston has struggled with the ups and downs of Oil in the last decade, and CLE was a city struggling to maintain the level of business that made it a logical hub in the 80's to early 90's when it was conceived (much the way MEM, CVG and STL have declined.) BNA would be a bet in the growth of a new area of the country, so UA doesn't get left out, since they don't have much of a foothold in North Carolina, another growing area of the country. Someday, it could work out the way that IAD is beginning to. Northern Virginia is becoming to DC, what Northern NJ is to NYC, a self-sustaining more affluent market, not whole dependent on the entire metro area with which it is associated.

cosyr · Fri May 22, 2020 1:05 pm

fun2fly wrote:
tphuang wrote:
I think UA's biggest challenge coming out of this is defending its hubs. Especially DEN, it will be in an uphill fight with WN who has all the money in the world to sustain a loss leading operation to gain market share. I would not be surprised if they buy out F9 to just get their gates at DEN. Remember, UA will also face WN pressure in the bay area, chicago and houston. UA's biggest challenge all across the country is a WN with a war chest of cash and very little debt.

When it comes to SE, I think FLL/MIA is not a great idea, but it will certainly be more open. AA I think will be a lot smaller at MIA given their weak financial position and slow return of deep south America flying. FLL will be quite open since both B6 and WN are likely to focus on bringing back other cities first. I don't think it makes sense for a legacy to build up at a primarily LCC airport. There will be plenty of space at MIA if they wanted to attempt it. I doubt they will. I don't see NK and F9 both remaining independent after this. Either they merge with each other or get taken over by WN or B6.

Does it really make sense for UA to buy an airline for narrowbody aircraft when used aircraft will be widely available at low cost from all the downsized airlines around the world?

I know it's only one O&D, but I'm booking a few trips on CLE>DEN and I'm a 1mm on UA so I rarely even look at WN, but this time I did. For both trips, WN is $198 and $240 RT each way and UA is $388 (plus an unreliable schedule in June still shows 4x daily). On some level, you need to be "close" on price and then also have a reliable schedule. Undoubtedly, UA will lose some share in the short term (Q2) primarily because they are not really flying vs. WN who is flying more. Come Q3, we'll see. I agree, UA will be in a dog fight in DEN.

I have seen similar things. We have a wedding in September to (hopefully) attend in DC. WN from ALB to BWI was $49 each way, and UA wanted $240 round trip for Basic Economy to IAD. Not outrageous, but still more than double. I know that's not apples to apples between BWI and IAD, but I was cross shopping it, so they should factor that in.

codc10 · Fri May 22, 2020 1:09 pm

Growing a new hub organically is an expensive undertaking, requiring considerable appetite for losses, even in a good economy. No way is it in the cards for any of the US3 over the next 2-3 years.

Scott Kirby has been very hub-centric in his time at United, and there's no reason to think he won't resume his prior (successful) strategy of growing United's mid-continent hubs, which are still generally smaller than their equivalents at AA/DL.

STT757 · Fri May 22, 2020 1:27 pm

tphuang wrote:
I think UA's biggest challenge coming out of this is defending its hubs. Especially DEN, it will be in an uphill fight with WN who has all the money in the world to sustain a loss leading operation to gain market share. I would not be surprised if they buy out F9 to just get their gates at DEN. Remember, UA will also face WN pressure in the bay area, chicago and houston. UA's biggest challenge all across the country is a WN with a war chest of cash and very little debt.

When it comes to SE, I think FLL/MIA is not a great idea, but it will certainly be more open. AA I think will be a lot smaller at MIA given their weak financial position and slow return of deep south America flying. FLL will be quite open since both B6 and WN are likely to focus on bringing back other cities first. I don't think it makes sense for a legacy to build up at a primarily LCC airport. There will be plenty of space at MIA if they wanted to attempt it. I doubt they will. I don't see NK and F9 both remaining independent after this. Either they merge with each other or get taken over by WN or B6.

Does it really make sense for UA to buy an airline for narrowbody aircraft when used aircraft will be widely available at low cost from all the downsized airlines around the world?

UA, and before them CO, and WN have had a somewhat complimentary relationship.. I point to during the merger of UA and CO they choose to give the 18 EWR slots that belonged to pre merger UA to WN. Also they choose to lease their two gates at Dallas Love Field to WN. WN left IAH, and recently left EWR. They aren't really adversaries. Recently, before COVID, UA pulled back their CLE flying from DCA and LGA. The DCA slots UA decided to use to increase EWR-DCA frequencies. We never figured out what they were planning for the five LGA slots they were using for CLE. I would not be shocked if they discussed a lease to WN.

In Denver UA and WN seem to co-exist very well, UA stated it had become it's most profitable hub even in the face of WN's exponential growth. In terms of future growth at DEN I think UA made out like a bandit with the City of Denver adding new gates as well as acquiring a dozen or so on concourse A. In Houston there seemed to be a possible competitive face off as WN got the city of Houston to build a FIS at Hobby airport. UA and Jeff Smisek in particular made a huff. But in the end it didn't turn out to be much of anything, WN launched some new International routes, but ended up dropping most. The one's they still fly don't have much of an effect on UA's operation at IAH.

WN and UA co-exist in Chicago, Denver, Oakland/ San Francisco, Houston and Baltimore/Washington. I would look for WN to grow in LGA.

I think B6 probably has the most to fear from WN. WN has pretty much been pushing B6 out of LGB, they're the number 1 carrier at MCO and they handle twice as many passengers from LGA than B6. If AA were to sell some assets, such as slots in the NYC market, look for WN.

UPlog · Fri May 22, 2020 3:01 pm

LAXintl wrote:
Some color from VP of Flt Ops about demand and schedule outlook.

Many of you have written about a competitor who is adding 100 flights and you are asking about what we are doing. One metric I like to track is the TSA passenger throughput. You can see for yourself that traffic, unfortunately, is still incredibly low. On May 19 for example, only 190,477 passengers passed through TSA checkpoints compared to 2,312,727 on the same day last year. We are seeing very minor improvements, but the improvements are painfully slow. There were days in March and April where we saw fewer than 10,000 passengers fly on United aircraft. Yesterday we carried a total of 32,417 passengers with 28,043 revenue passengers, 1,008 positive space travelers and 3,366 NRSA travelers. Last year at this time we would have carried well over 500,000 passengers daily. The good news is that in July our schedule is planned to be down about 75% down vs. the 90% reduced schedule we will fly in May and June. We will seek to add flying back in a responsible way that allows us to add capacity where it makes sense, but also allows us to be laser focused on cost to reduce our daily cash burn.

.... basically don't look for UA to add blanket capacity. Focus on filing existing flying and minimizing cash burn is the priority.

I would agree.

Now is not the time to add flying for sake of market share or simply to say you have X number of flights.

Focus needs to be on keeping the red ink to a minimum and survival long term.

Related with pulled down schedules anyone known how hub banks and connectivity is working today?
Obviously banks are much smaller and presume far fewer.

LAXintl · Fri May 22, 2020 4:46 pm

UPlog wrote:
Related with pulled down schedules anyone known how hub banks and connectivity is working today?
Obviously banks are much smaller and presume far fewer.

Yes the hub banks have been reshaped. For example ORD basically has two primary banks with the May schedule - around 915am and 530pm to consolidate connecting traffic flow.

intotheair · Fri May 22, 2020 5:05 pm

STT757 wrote:
UA, and before them CO, and WN have had a somewhat complimentary relationship.. I point to during the merger of UA and CO they choose to give the 18 EWR slots that belonged to pre merger UA to WN. Also they choose to lease their two gates at Dallas Love Field to WN. WN left IAH, and recently left EWR. They aren't really adversaries. Recently, before COVID, UA pulled back their CLE flying from DCA and LGA. The DCA slots UA decided to use to increase EWR-DCA frequencies. We never figured out what they were planning for the five LGA slots they were using for CLE. I would not be shocked if they discussed a lease to WN.

In Denver UA and WN seem to co-exist very well, UA stated it had become it's most profitable hub even in the face of WN's exponential growth. In terms of future growth at DEN I think UA made out like a bandit with the City of Denver adding new gates as well as acquiring a dozen or so on concourse A. In Houston there seemed to be a possible competitive face off as WN got the city of Houston to build a FIS at Hobby airport. UA and Jeff Smisek in particular made a huff. But in the end it didn't turn out to be much of anything, WN launched some new International routes, but ended up dropping most. The one's they still fly don't have much of an effect on UA's operation at IAH.

WN and UA co-exist in Chicago, Denver, Oakland/ San Francisco, Houston and Baltimore/Washington. I would look for WN to grow in LGA.

I think B6 probably has the most to fear from WN. WN has pretty much been pushing B6 out of LGB, they're the number 1 carrier at MCO and they handle twice as many passengers from LGA than B6. If AA were to sell some assets, such as slots in the NYC market, look for WN.

"Co-exist" is a very kind way of saying "fierce competitors."

I don't really understand how you arrive at your conclusion. UA's weakness is the domestic market, which happens to be WN's greatest strenght. WN is a substantial competitor in virtually all of UA's hub markets. They have by far the least debt out of the big four, and they are best poised to bounce back the soonest as domestic travel is going to come back first. WN would love to eat UA's lunch at their hubs. They certainly were doing that for some time in places like DEN when management was asleep at the wheel for years.

Once travel demand returns, I expect UA to aggressively fight to keep and grow its domestic market share in its hub markets. WN and others that are stronger domestically could gobble it up pretty quickly if UA flinches. Good thing UA has a great management team.

UALifer · Fri May 22, 2020 5:51 pm

UPlog wrote:
Related with pulled down schedules anyone known how hub banks and connectivity is working today?
Obviously banks are much smaller and presume far fewer.

Banks aren't actually that much smaller, just significantly fewer.

ORD has two banks - 75-80 departures each
DEN has two banks - 65-70 departures each
IAH has two banks - 60-65 departures each
SFO has two banks - 30-35 departures each
IAD has one bank - 65-70 departures
LAX and EWR don't have connecting banks (and didn't really before this either)

adamblang · Fri May 22, 2020 6:07 pm

intotheair wrote:
STT757 wrote:
UA, and before them CO, and WN have had a somewhat complimentary relationship.

In Denver UA and WN seem to co-exist very well, UA stated it had become it's most profitable hub even in the face of WN's exponential growth.

WN and UA co-exist in Chicago, Denver, Oakland/ San Francisco, Houston and Baltimore/Washington. I would look for WN to grow in LGA.

"Co-exist" is a very kind way of saying "fierce competitors."

By my count Southwest serves 90 stations in the 50 U.S. states while United serves 238. So yes Southwest and United compete head-to-head getting folks between Denver and Los Angles or between Chicago and Houston. But there's a lot of places they don't compete:

Anybody trying to travel to/from small/medium-sized cities in the U.S. doesn't have Southwest as an option
Anybody who's interested in status on an airline who ever needs to visit a small/medium-sized city is going to have to think hard about flying Southwest in markets Southwest does serve
Southwest isn't competing for passengers who care about premium cabins, lounges, or things like that
Southwest isn't a threat when it comes to anybody flying to international destinations that aren't resort Caribbean or Latin America destinations

Even though Southwest is the largest U.S. airline by domestic passengers transported, there are massive swaths of the market they don't compete for at all. American and Delta, however, are fighting over all of those market segments.

In the Kirby era, we've seen all sorts of small-market stations added, all of which Southwest doesn't serve, many of which American and Delta don't serve, which I assume is an effort to insulate United against competition and bolster the value proposition of "United should be your airline of choice because it can get you anywhere better than anyone else can."

Is Southwest a competitor? Absolutely. Is it the most direct competitor? No.

dca1 · Fri May 22, 2020 9:11 pm

Due to UA's perceived narrowbody shortage relative to its peers... which airline would UA likely attempt to acquire/merge to remedy the lack of narrowbody frames? Perhaps NK? In the process eliminating an annoying industry competitor while acquiring their new aircraft and order book?

jetblastdubai · Sat May 23, 2020 12:52 am

dca1 wrote:
Due to UA's perceived narrowbody shortage relative to its peers... which airline would UA likely attempt to acquire/merge to remedy the lack of narrowbody frames? Perhaps NK? In the process eliminating an annoying industry competitor while acquiring their new aircraft and order book?

Unions have made mergers cost prohibitive and messy. When the MAX issues get solved, UA will have plenty of narrowbody planes to fill any gaps they might have in addition to the used A/C they're getting from China Eastern and Southwest. They supposedly also have picked up canceled MAX deliveries slots from other carriers so theoretically, they could acquire new planes much faster than TK (training center) can pump out new pilots.

calpsafltskeds · Sat May 23, 2020 1:34 pm

789 New Delivery:
N29975 sked first revenue flight 1144/23May after extensive wing damage repair at ORD during new delivery Induction.
Aircraft was first delivered with Polaris/PP installed. Currently 5 in service delivered with Polaris plus 2 with completed Polaris mod.

United continues to add some flights and upgrade some flights with larger aircraft. Currently there are about 175 units flying today.
70 are Widebodies, Most 788s, 789, 78X and 77W units flying cargo. Plus a two 763s and five 772A/PW
108 Narrowbodies flying today: 319 28, 320 25, 73G 9, 738 25, 739 16, 752 0, 753 5. A few days ago there were very few 739s and 753s.

Nicknuzzii · Sat May 23, 2020 2:28 pm

Not sure if this is true or not but hearing that quite a few aircraft are going to be coming back into service. I believe around 50 737-900ers along with multiple other fleets to a lesser extent.

LGeneReese · Sat May 23, 2020 8:35 pm

calpsafltskeds wrote:
789 New Delivery:
N29975 sked first revenue flight 1144/23May after extensive wing damage repair at ORD during new delivery Induction.
Aircraft was first delivered with Polaris/PP installed. Currently 5 in service delivered with Polaris plus 2 with completed Polaris mod.

Note that four additional 789s were delivered and flying while 0975 was being repaired.. :gasp:

wn676 · Sat May 23, 2020 9:40 pm

calpsafltskeds wrote:
789 New Delivery:
N29975 sked first revenue flight 1144/23May after extensive wing damage repair at ORD during new delivery Induction.
Aircraft was first delivered with Polaris/PP installed. Currently 5 in service delivered with Polaris plus 2 with completed Polaris mod.

United continues to add some flights and upgrade some flights with larger aircraft. Currently there are about 175 units flying today.
70 are Widebodies, Most 788s, 789, 78X and 77W units flying cargo. Plus a two 763s and five 772A/PW
108 Narrowbodies flying today: 319 28, 320 25, 73G 9, 738 25, 739 16, 752 0, 753 5. A few days ago there were very few 739s and 753s.

I just landed in IAD on 0975. Unsurprisingly it looks and smells immaculate inside. Here’s a pic of the #1 side wing:

LGeneReese · Sun May 24, 2020 5:54 am

Looks like Boeing did a good job buffing out the dents. :bigthumbsup:

... I have doubts about this sort of damage being covered under the warrantee though...

UAinAUS · Sun May 24, 2020 7:15 am

UAX Update:

E175SC:
N609UX entered service with Skywest
N617UX entered service with Skywest
N604UX entered service with Skywest
N618UX entered service with Skywest
These frames ferried BOI for Skywest induction: 605, 612, 613

CR2:
N463AW back in service
N466AW back in service
N939SW parked at TUS
N928SW parked at TUS
N906EV back in service
N880AS parked at TUS

E145XR:
N17196 back in service
The following units have exited the fleet (stored at IGM): N13118, N17108, N34110

E145:
N11539 parked at TYS
N19554 parked at TYS
N18557 parked at TYS
N12900 parked at TYS
The following units have exited the fleet (stored at IGM): N11536, N15574, N10575, N832HK, N835HK, N836HK
The following units have exited the fleet (airframe sold): N845HK, N847HK

LAXintl · Sun May 24, 2020 3:23 pm

The pilot displacement bid closed on Friday. A bit over 4,200 got displaced.

Now will need to wait to see what the fall schedule will look like to determine what actual staffing need will be. Also in the interim there likely be additional early out, retirement, or leave of absences to clear list.

Looking at another round(or two) of bids to balance things at bases/equipment that are overstaffed and who really gets left without a chair at the end.

LAXintl · Sun May 24, 2020 8:20 pm

One tidbit that came out from the Global Transportation conference last week was that UA said it would reassess LOPAs. Assuming the recovery demand profile skews further toward leisure as business travel remains weaker in period of global recession it could make sense to pull premium seats and densify aircraft further.

UAinAUS · Tue May 26, 2020 1:15 am

UAX Update:

E175:
N721YX back in service
N722YX back in service
N723YX back in service
N727YX back in service
N728YX back in service
N752YX back in service

E170:
N634RW parked at CMH
N648RW parked at CMH
N642RW parked at IND

CR5:
N504GJ back in service
N508GJ back in service
N506GJ parked at STL
N522GJ parked at STL
N551GJ parked at STL

United1 · Tue May 26, 2020 1:23 am

Are the 752s coming back online?

I had to check SFO-EWR flights for early July and of the four daily non-stops is 1 is a 78X and 3 are 752s. LAX-EWR is showing a 78X, 763, and a 752.

Looks like 752s are back on the schedule from early June on.

hOMSaR · Tue May 26, 2020 7:09 pm

As a reminder, this thread is about UA fleet and route network developments. Discussions about labor relations, COVID-related pay cuts, or old UA vs. CO divisions are off topic.

redrooster3 · Tue May 26, 2020 8:47 pm

Latest updates indicate P&Ws 757s (ex p.s.) are all retired. Sub-CO 752s/753s will be brought back. I've seen a few 752s and 753s running around IAH recently.

764s listed as "in storage" compared to retired as previously announced in an email from 2 weeks ago.

739s (3401-3412) listed as "in storage" too, these may be on the edge of long term storage or retirement.

Anybody know about 3014? She's a leased bird who is the last 777 in "active storage" who still has diamond seats. Possible retirement of old Peter max?

atcsundevil · Tue May 26, 2020 8:55 pm

Just to echo hOMSaR, this really isn't the place for arguing over union/management issues. We really don't want to serve as a platform to fuel those differences, particularly during a time when a lot of people are suffering in a lot of different ways. A discussion is one thing, but having things turn personal or nasty is entirely different. Let's not lose sight of the big picture here.

__________________________________________________
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

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