Terry Maxon who is the regular reporter for all things airline related at the Dallas Morning News and the primary contributor for the Dallas Morning News Aviation Blog has created an uproar among American Airlines pilots by suggesting that AA either suddenly has a vast number of its fleet experiencing serious maintenance problems all at once or something is up among the pilots and/or mechanics.

As a result, he’s gotten many emails from AA pilots contending that maintenance is the real issue  and that pilots are simply going by AA’s own book when it comes to dealing with those issues.

AA’s fleet is old by any standard and, yes, maintenance issues should be pretty common particularly among the MD-80 fleet.   Let me point out that the MD-80 fleet is only 191 strong now and is getting replaced rapidly by new build 737-800s.

AA has the following fleet count:

• MD-80:  191
• 737-800:  186
• 757-200:  105
• 767-200:  14 (and to be replaced by A321NEO aircraft)
• 767-300:  58
• 777-200:  47

205 aircraft in AA’s fleet could be categorized as “very old”.  These are the MD-80s and 767-200s.   Most of the 767-300 aircraft are actually not that old as aircraft go and should be categorized as “appropriate” and that accounts for 58.  The same is true for the 757 fleet and that gives us another 105 aircraft in the “appropriate” category with an average age of just 17 years.  For the relatively low cycles the 757 fleet has, that’s perfectly acceptable.  The 767-300 aircraft tell a story similar to that of the 757 fleet and total 58 aircraft.   The remaining aircraft (737/777) total 233 aircraft.

Now, please remember that fleets change and my counts may be off by a few aircraft but how I’m categorizing them isn’t.  So, let’s look at what is old vs new in the AA fleet:

• Very Old Aircraft (MD-80 and 767):  205  (34% of the fleet)
• Old But Appropriate (757 & 767-300):  163 (27% of the fleet)
• Young Aircraft:  233 (39% of the fleet)

I think the pilots are overplaying their story of age and poor maintenance.  Furthermore, I’ll point out that other airlines run similarly old or even older sub-fleets with nary a problem.  Airlines such as Delta, for instance.

And despite how old those MD-80s are, they are also by all accounts some of the most durable aircraft around and very capable of flying with deferred issues.

Sorry AA pilots, I think you’re right in that some stuff has been deferred, some maintenance not done as regularly but I also think you are still playing “the game” with the company too.  If you think I’m wrong, contact me and give me real evidence that you aren’t.

Filed under: Airline News by ajax
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United Airlines CEO Jeff Smisek has recently made some comments about the airline and its fleet with particular attention to the 787.

Smisek notes that the range, efficiency and passenger capacity opens up new point to point routes for the airline such as Denver to Japan.  These are the kinds of routes we can expect from US airlines who take on the aircraft and the 787-9 will be used to upgrade service on those routes originally developed with the 787-8.

Smisek also reiterates that United doesn’t see the A380 as an airplane for them (and I agree) and does acknowledge that the 747-8i is being looked at (but likely not very seriously) and notes that it has a lot of airliners on order.  I strongly suspect that United would rather purchase the 777-X rather than buy either the 747-8i or A380.  In addition, I think he sees a lot of aging 777 aircraft that would be better replaced with a 787-10 or 777-X as well.

But Boeing has slipped its authorization to offer plan for the 777-X to late 2013 or early 2014.  Most think that Boeing doesn’t need to offer the 777-X now and that waiting to see the final definition of the A350-1000 will help them.

I think that you can’t lead in an industry from behind.  Waiting too long for to see what your customer does leaves you playing catch up and if that customer delivers on its promise, it doesn’t matter what you can do to better the situation, people will buy what’s available.

If you think I’m wrong . . . just look at what Airbus pulled off with its A320NEO against Boeing who is still lagging behind and who has a “me too” offering at best.

Filed under: Airline Fleets by ajax
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