American/us air hiring vs consolidation

[ackattacker]

Those orders you mention total roughly 70 aircraft. Give or take a few. There are something like 80 767 aircraft in the combined company. Many of them are long past their sell by date. I would be surprised if they are still flying 767's by the time the last 350/787 arrives. The 12 777's might represent growth but I'm sure some of the older 200's are getting ready for pasture over the next 5-10 years. Us Airways has some pretty old 330's as well.

They won't be able to compete 5-10 years down the road flying old gas guzzlers when the rest of the international carriers are flying the latest and greatest. So I would put money on minimal international growth (except for codesharing) and aircraft retirements as the new fleet arrives. With an airline of 12,000 pilots adding a few flights to NRT, SYD, PVG, etc won't translate into dramatic growth. I bet they do Africa and India via a codeshare with EK. Just my $.02. I'm usually wrong

I agree aircraft orders don't imply growth, necessarily. There's a lot of aircraft in the combined fleet that could be retired at any moment. But code-sharing only goes so far. I think Dougie has grander plans. IMHO. At some point you want to capture that international revenue yourself and not just give it away to your competitors. Aircraft orders at least means that they plan to stay in the big aircraft business.

 

[zymotic]

Pilots with 15 months are upgrading on the East.

That would seem significant if it wasn't for the fact that a 190 Captain makes virtually the same as a narrowbody F/O. That is the sole reason guys are getting the quick 190 upgrade. Narrowbody CA is still going to guys on the East no more junior that 87 or 88 hires.