Wide bodies on the way. ANY NEWS???

[elvis]

I heard yesterday there was a big wide body announcement .standing by!!

[jetsetfly]

No wide bodies ordered just rumours

[Big Pistons Forever]

Rumour is that Westjet has been sitting on 6 or 8 production slots. The speculation is that are approaching the time where they have to either sell the slots or take the airframes.

[matrix]

6-8 A380s seems a bit much don't you think?

[Donald]

Wrong forum. Should be under Encore news.

[J Roc]

Wrong forum. Should be under Encore news.

Well played sir

[TopperHarley]

I'm hearing B767 initially, from people on the inside. May announce it today.

[albatross]

3 dry lease wide body's. Fact.

[Red1]

Dry Lease, still looking at type 767/330

[hayden]

Oh great, another airline wthin an airline, MORE lease returns and parked mainline planes! More walls between the employee's, lay-off's, or forced transfers, but some how its for the bettter!

[CAL]

Very exciting for you guys....I assume

from the Financial Post:

But even if WestJet were to make a decision tomorrow on a new wide-body fleet, it would still take several years before those planes could be delivered due to the long wait times at the major aircraft manufacturers, Boeing and Airbus. Dry-leasing some of larger, wide-body aircraft in the interim would allow the airline to continue its expansion in Europe and elsewhere and reward its own pilots with the higher wages that typically come with flying larger aircraft.

“WestJet’s decision to launch 737 service to Dublin next summer was just the first step towards a fuller pursuit of the overseas markets,” said Ben Cherniavsky, Raymond James analyst, in an email.

“Wide-body flying is the next natural follow-up to this strategy. It adds further complications and costs to WestJet’s business model, but also represents an enormous opportunity for them, and a huge threat to [Air Canada],” he added.

Dry leasing wide-body aircraft would also offer an incentive for WestJet’s pilots to agree to a new contract after rejecting a tentative agreement last November.

It might also even provide a carrot for the pilots to reject an aggressive unionization drive currently underway by an organization calling themselves the WestJet Professional Pilots Association.

The WPPA has been holding town hall meetings with WestJet’s pilots in recent weeks advocating the advantages of unionization, including access to third-party mediation and arbitration in disputes, post-retirement health care benefits, and, of course, the ability to legally strike, if a dispute can’t be resolved.

Mr. Bartrem said any decision to dry lease the wide-body aircraft, if it were to be made, has nothing to do with the current contract talks with the pilots or the unionization effort underway at the airline.

“The two are totally unrelated,” he said. “This is a tactical solution to the 757 going away.”

[True North]

Oh great, another airline wthin an airline, MORE lease returns and parked mainline planes! More walls between the employee's, lay-off's, or forced transfers, but some how its for the bettter!

?? How does adding a new type equate to any of that^?

[Donald]

Definitely interesting timing for an announcement of something that "might" happen several years down the road...

Mr. Bartrem said any decision to dry lease the wide-body aircraft, if it were to be made, has nothing to do with the current contract talks with the pilots or the unionization effort underway at the airline.

[True North]

Definitely interesting timing for an announcement of something that "might" happen several years down the road...

Not really. It isn't "several years down the road" it's actually just over a year. If you've ever had anything to do with acquiring and importing aircraft (I have) you would know that is not very much time, and they haven't even found the a/c yet. Their plan is to take over the Alberta/Hawaii flying from Thomas Cook in November of 2015. In order to do that they will need the aircraft on the property at the very latest by August 2015 and that is if TC agrees to only 3 months for their ETOPS 180 approval - they could insist on 6 months if they want to - which means the a/c would need to be on the property by May. They need to get a training program approved, a maintenance program approved, source simulator time, crew bidding sorted, the list goes on. I spoke to my bud last night when I heard about this, he is in their flight ops management and he is a bit panicked by the timeline. I don't blame him.

My understanding is the only "might" in the equation is the pilot group buy-in. Can't imagine why they wouldn't buy-in but who knows.

[rudder]

And the pay rate on the WB aircraft will be.............?

[Realitychex]

And the pay rate on the WB aircraft will be.............?

....it will have to be consistent with the overall goal of having the lowest cost base in the Canadian industry.

When you go to the supermarket and see a bunch of Chiquita bananas and a bunch of Dole bananas, both at equal stages of ripeness, I guarantee you'll choose the lowest priced bunch of bananas.

Only with the lowest costs can the seller of the lowest priced bunch of bananas stay in the game for any length of time.

There's absolutely no point in WJ entering the wide body game with the second lowest costs out there.

Indeed, I would be leery of committing to WB's unless the modeling clearly indicated a casm adjusted to a 3,000 mile asl at least 15% and preferably 20% below the competition when it is all said and done. That means it better pencil-in closer to 25% with some realistic modeling.

I suspect it is doable.

[rudder]

And the pay rate on the WB aircraft will be.............?

....it will have to be consistent with the overall goal of having the lowest cost base in the Canadian industry.

When you go to the supermarket and see a bunch of Chiquita bananas and a bunch of Dole bananas, both at equal stages of ripeness, I guarantee you'll choose the lowest priced bunch of bananas.

Only with the lowest costs can the seller of the lowest priced bunch of bananas stay in the game for any length of time.

There's absolutely no point in WJ entering the wide body game with the second lowest costs out there.

Indeed, I would be leery of committing to WB's unless the modeling clearly indicated a casm adjusted to a 3,000 mile asl at least 15% and preferably 20% below the competition when it is all said and done. That means it better pencil-in closer to 25% with some realistic modeling.

I suspect it is doable.

What WJ pays the WB pilots will not make one iota of difference between profit or loss. However, the issue of whether there will be a status pay system or equipment based pay could prove a major bone of contention. WJ believes in an egalitarian system (except of course at ENCORE which is a de facto B/C-scale). Will the WJPA say that the WB pays NB scale? Will there be a separate group of pilots that get paid more?

Stay tuned. This will be interesting.

[loopa]

I hear rumours of a wide body hangar being built for what it's worth.

[Old fella]

I hear rumours of a wide body hangar being built for what it's worth.

Been around a long time and if I had a buck for every rumour heard in this aviation industry, I could build them a new hangar.

[albatross]

We're coming old fella to bury your beloved airline.

[albatross]

.

[Realitychex]

EVERY cost makes the difference between success and failure. It takes pennies to make dollars.

You'd think after, what, 18 years, people would have figured that out?

Qantas is learning this the hard way.

It wasn't 2 years ago when the Qantas / Jetstar strategy was being bandied around as the ultimate solution to every legacy airline's cost problems when dealing with LCC competition.

Instead, they may have canibalized their core market, to the point where the core market almost no longer exists. YOY RASM is off 5%, Yield is off 3%, costs snuck up 1%, even with "low cost" Jetstar. The airline appears to be pedaling backwards towards a cliff.

Their July 1 thru Dec 31 2014 margin was -3.2%, and their BELF was high at 81%, a number some readers should be familiar with.

Qantas is anything but the lowest cost producer of a kg of bananas and as a result, they are in deep, deep doo doo now.

I'd say a lesson is being learned down under and probably being carefully observed elsewhere.

On the bright side, there is going to be an excellent fleet of B767-300's on the market in the next year or so.




[/quote]

What WJ pays the WB pilots will not make one iota of difference between profit or loss. However, the issue of whether there will be a status pay system or equipment based pay could prove a major bone of contention. WJ believes in an egalitarian system (except of course at ENCORE which is a de facto B/C-scale). Will the WJPA say that the WB pays NB scale? Will there be a separate group of pilots that get paid more?

Stay tuned. This will be interesting.[/quote]

[Donald]

So Realitychex, sounds like the only proper thing to do is put the WB's in the Encore fleet?

That would provide the cheapest bananas, no?

[Realitychex]

So Realitychex, sounds like the only proper thing to do is put the WB's in the Encore fleet?

That would provide the cheapest bananas, no?

They'll stay at the mainline. There are at least 2 key elements to keep unit costs low. I would think most WJ pilots are well aware of the equation by now.

One has to only look at Qantas / Jetstar model to understand how having the second or third lowest unit costs in the market and a $1.50 will get you a cup of hot, steaming Jack Squat, not to mention a ton of layoffs and aircraft flying off into the night, never to return.

[Donald]

EVERY cost makes the difference between success and failure. It takes pennies to make dollars.