MESA on 60 day notice?

[SYXDude]

Who's operating the Jet for US Airways and Midwest? I thought that was PSA because I remembered reading that PSA was the first operator of the Jet.

Wrong. Skyway was the launch customer for the DorkJet and only 3 operators in the world fly the DorkJet for airliner use. Skyway, ACA (Delta), and Hainan in China. PSA flies the DorkProp.

Later

 

[DrRaptor]

K. Thanks for the correction. All of my books are pre-Jet, so I don't have any reliable information on who's operating them. I don't usually use Airliners or Jetphotos either because half the photographers get it wrong.

 

[rightrudder]

Oh, and the thing with the 328's being too expensive to maintain, then why is it that in 2000, ZW purchased almost $10 million in parts for the aircraft to put in stores?

Most of the parts that these planes use on a normal are still produced, because they were all bought by Fairchild-Dornier (or Daimler-Chrysler-Dornier depending on which plane you were looking at) to be put on the aircraft (engines, fasteners, tires, brakes, hoses, etc), so the aircraft going out of production didn't equal the price going up as was previously claimed. If that was the case, then -

AAL wouldn't be flying F-100s
PSA wouldn't be flying 328Jets
Air Tahoma wouldn't be flying Convair 240s and Convair 580s at 2/3 the price of an ATR-42 and ATR-72 respectively.

Just because the company that built the plane isn't around anymore or doesn't build the plane anymore doesn't necessarily mean that the cost of maintenance goes up. If that was true without fault, then many of the Douglas DC-3, -6, -7, and -8 aircraft wouldn't be flying still. You wouldn't see the 727 in such numbers on the freight lines, you certainly wouldn't see our Convairs in the air.

Reference other posts, PSA doesn't operate Dork jets, they have props, and as I understand it, they are planning on getting rid of them.

Look dude, I work for AWAC and you don't. Don't try to tell me what my company is doing when you have no actual first hand knowlege of what has been going on here. I was flying the 328 and I know all about the problems we had with parts. The aircraft was also not the most reliable. It had a lot of items without MEL relief. Our owners did not want to operate the 328's any longer and got rid of them at the first opportunity. A lot of us pilots were unhappy with that decision.

 

[DrRaptor]

I worked for Air Wisconsin for 4 months only to be laid off after Sept. 11th. I then returned to DIA and worked for ASIG for 2 years beginning in Feb. 2002, so I was around for the whole deal. Hell, I was fueling the 328s right up through the last day of operations. I know what the problems were, and while they may not have been extremely reliable, they were as reliable as the DASH-8s are now, and the parts themselves weren't as expensive as you say nor did the price suddenly skyrocket after F-D shutdown. I knew most of the 328 mechanics at DEN, and talked to them about these things, so I know what the maintenance side is.

 

[TWheat61]

Look raptor, you need to give it up because you are dead wrong on the 328's. I don't know about TODAY, but when Dornier went under there was a lack of parts for those airplanes. In fact, all of the 328 operators in the US banded together and were sharing parts to keep there respective fleets operating.

And as for the financing of our aircraft, we are backed by the Canadian government and not United.

 

[frjmx328]

Look raptor, you need to give it up because you are dead wrong on the 328's. I don't know about TODAY, but when Dornier went under there was a lack of parts for those airplanes. In fact, all of the 328 operators in the US banded together and were sharing parts to keep there respective fleets operating.

And as for the financing of our aircraft, we are backed by the Canadian government and not United.

Huh? Unless my memory is failing me, the only parts that ACA used that other carriers used was engines. Due to power by the hour agreements with PWC, PWC had a pool of engines on hand and would dispatch accordingly.

Worked the Jet three years, and the only part I ever borrowed from another carrier was a boot patch, and the occasional screw.

 

[J32driver]

and the parts themselves weren't as expensive as you say nor did the price suddenly skyrocket after F-D shutdown. I knew most of the 328 mechanics at DEN, and talked to them about these things, so I know what the maintenance side is.

Actually.... when Fairchild went into insolvency, the airplane did become prohibitively expensive to operate. It wasn't because the price of an individual part increased. AWAC had a "power by the hour" contract with Fairchild that made engines CHEAP!!! When Fairchild filed for insolvency, that agreement was suddenly null and void. AWAC suddenly found themselves stuck with the full operating price for the 328.

Raptor... listen to what the folks on this board are telling you. They are correct in everything I've read so far.

 

[DrRaptor]

"TWheat" - First, if you'll re-read what I said, I clarified and said that when AWAC was originally wanting to put the ARJ, RJX, or CRJ-700/900 on the line, United was the garunteeor on the AWAC loans. That has obviously changed and I DIDN'T DISPUTE THAT other than to say that AWAC as late as 2004 was still not willing to purchase aircraft and then bid on the contract after making a purchase, so they were still looking to UAL to give them a contract before purchasing the aircraft.

"J32 Driver" - Funny, because the post before yours said that PWC picked up the contract, and I can very quickly ask a couple of people how fast that "Power-By-The-Hour" contract was transferred to PWC. I know that it was pretty quick because it happened while I was at DEN, and I watched and engine change at COS in early 2003 while visiting a mechanic I'd met while at AWAC. The boxes the turbine parts came in clearly said PWC on them, not Fairchild, and had been shipped direct from Pratt's factory in Longueuil.

 

[DirkkDiggler]

Raptor,

I think we're disputing a vocabulary lesson here. AWAC's loans for new RJ's came from the Canadian government. As I said before, we were one of the only airlines to qualify for these loans as we are privately owned as opposed to a publicly traded company. That does not mean that United could guarantee those loans. To guarantee a loan just means that you will pay the balance of the loan if the primary holder of the loan defaults on the payments. For example, if I wanted to buy a house, most mortgage companies would laugh at me when I asked for a loan. However, if I had my parents guarantee the loan then they would probably be willing to give me the money because my parents would be liable for the debt if I could no longer pay it off. On a side note, I'd be very surprised if United were allowed to guarantee a loan today while in bankruptcy. I'm not sure their bankruptcy agreement allows it and I'm sure the Canadian government is jumping at the chance to let a company in bankruptcy guarantee a multi million dollar loan. I could be wrong about all this but I'm pretty sure United was not planning to purchase any more aircraft on behalf of AWAC.

 

[DrRaptor]

Well, like I said, back when I was in Denver and after I left AWAC, UAL basically dictated what AWAC flew because they were the only people AWAC flew for. AWAC went to UAL and asked if United would use the airplanes that they wanted to buy, and UAL would say yes or no. Whether or not they garunteed the loans wasn't an issue at that point either since AWAC had it's own funding. But during 2000 and 2001, AWAC's loans were garunteed by UAL, and UAL had final say on any AWAC purchases of aircraft. AWAC took over Lone Star only because UAL said to and because UAL said they'd continue to use the Do-328.