American Airlines orders new planes
 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/busine...,2025443.story

Some stations are reporting up to 900 new planes. Some Boeing and some Airbus. The airline will go from having one of the oldest fleets to one of the youngest. If another airline orders planes now, it will take awhile for this order to first get out.

I don't particularly mind the MD80s since they're on shorter haul routes, but maybe now they'll retire their ancient 757s and 767s.

Those MD80's go back to the 1980's. To save fuel, I heard the pilots would taxi to the runway and back with just one engine.

Bout time they updated their fleet.

Every other flight to SA I was delayed for

old plane repairs... worst major airline fleet

for mechanical issues for me.

Got a great deal I understand

Squeezed Boeing till the buffalo nickel screamed...

so Bravo AA.com

I would/will not be surprised at all if heads are about to roll at Boeing over this. They've been dithering over the next generation narrow body for years, while EADS got ready to eat their lunch with the A320neo. Meanwhile, everybody from the Brazilians to the Chinese are prepping 100-120 seat jets to eat what's left of said mid-day meal, starting in 3 or 4 years.

As for AA, buried in the blether was the news that they're spinning off Eagle. Watch for AA's financials to start getting better quick.

They posted 2nd Q loss of $286m. $0.85/share while Wall Street was expecting $0.75/share. Meanwhile, UAL posted 2nd Q earnings of $577m, beating Wall Street estimate. US and AS also posted earnings that beat estimate. It is really very grim over in DFW, since with that kind of bottom-line, their cost of borrowing for the new aircraft will be higher than their peers.

<i>their cost of borrowing for the new aircraft will be higher than their peers.</i>

Wouldn't count on that. I believe that Boeing and Airbus are financing the deal and AA execs have stated that the financing terms were what made the deal possible.

<i>As for AA, buried in the blether was the news that they're spinning off Eagle. Watch for AA's financials to start getting better quick.</i>

AA's financial problems run a LOT deeper than Eagle. New planes won't fix it either. Until they fix their workforce issues, particularly around their cost structure, I don't see them digging out of the hole they are in. In some ways, I give them credit for avoiding Chapter 11, but at the rate things are going, they may have just delayed the inevitable, and possibly increased the resulting pain.

When flying to France we always have to go on the MD 80s from Sacramento to Dallas, and I really, really hate those planed!