How old is united airlines

United does not comment specifically about the 21 June report but repeats a comment made earlier this month in response to earlier reports about a potential aircraft order. At the time, media reported the airline intends to order about aircraft. According to Cirium fleets data, United operates aircraft, including those in service and storage, with an average age of US low-cost and ultra low-cost carriers tend to have the youngest fleets.

Allegiant Air, known for operating older jets, has a fleet that is United has aircraft on order from both Airbus 95 aircraft and Boeing aircraft. These include 45 widebody As and one Narrowbody orders include 50 Aneos, and jets from the Max family. That jet is scheduled to have its first flight in and begin to carry paying passengers in With the airline shifting focus to the leisure traveller market, which rebounded from the coronavirus crisis faster than initially expected, the airline is offering more point-to-point routes to augment its hub-and-spoke strategy.

That could require more smaller aircraft to connect secondary cities more frequently. But despite stopping deliveries, despite fuselage issues, despite withered demand for international travel and despite markedly reduced production rates, analysts still foresee bright tomorrows for the jet. Despite ongoing technical issues, Boeing has recently landed significant new orders for the once-grounded narrowbody, progressed with clearing a hundreds-deep inventory of stored jets and achieved first flight of the Max United has also recently committed to acquiring electric air taxis and supersonic jets, and pledged to invest in sustainable aviation fuels SAF.

But this order has some significant risks, also, and has implications for domestic U. This has plenty of interesting implications. These replacements will mean a step function increase in size per departure compared with the RJs, meaning that the schedule may need to change in terms of frequency or otherwise a lot more people will be needed for each flight.

The RJs are flown by regional airlines on a cost-plus basis for United, making these flights a much lower per-trip cost than a United-flown flight. When a replaces an RJ, it is now United pilots flying the plane and the regional carrier must redeploy their plane with United or find something else to do with it. The larger plane will burn more absolute fuel although likely less fuel per seat, and since it is heavier it will cost more to land it at most airports and it will be more expensive to insure.

Not long ago, CEO Scott Kirby spoke positively about United keeping more wide-body planes than his primary competitors, and he saw this as a strength for when long-haul business travel returns.

Using a long-range narrow-body instead of a wide-body aircraft reduces the financial risk of a flight significantly and allows more destinations to to be added from hubs like Newark and Houston. This order suggests that United will soon be announcing a retirement schedule for some of their older wide-bodies.

Also, though, many of these new planes will likely replace older narrow-bodies too, like their Airbus As or older Boeing models. This order gives United the ability to simplify their fleet while making it more efficient, and that means deciding soon which aircraft will leave the fleet as a result of of this new capacity. In the last few years, United has been steadily building up its hubs in a strategy that is working well for them.

For example, from their hub in Denver, they fly to Los Angeles — but so do lower-cost carriers Southwest and Frontier. United is forced to match the low prices set by these more efficient carriers on this route. By adding service from Denver to more mid-size and small cities, like Kalispell, MT, for example, they can be less dependent on the low-price local traffic from Denver to L. This new fleet order will support this strategy but also make the feed more expensive, with a new United airplane instead of a much lower-price regionally flown RJ.

Alternatively, they can add even more cities but these would need to support the larger cabin size of the new equipment. This large increase in size of the average departures will affect their schedule in ways that will be interesting to watch. At the same time as they are adding a lot of seats per departure, they are also greatly increasing the costs of their hub feed and this will ensure that they remain highly dependent on business travel that may or may not fully return.

This upgrade also puts pressure on an already strained balance sheet, adding billions in debt while most airlines are focused on balance sheet repair after leveraging up to stay alive through the pandemic. United seems to be focused on beating American and Delta at the big airline game, but in doing so it is making it harder for them to compete with the fastest-growing segment of the industry.

They may argue that the marginal cost on the incremental seats gives them the tool they need to be price competitive where necessary. United does not dominate their hubs in same ways as Delta and American do, and this means that they have more competition for customers at all points on the price spectrum.

They seem to be making a bet that customers will choose United, even at a higher price, if their service is good enough. Rather than say it make them more green which it will , or burn less fuel which it will , or be more reliable which it will , or even be more profitable uncertain , CEO Kirby has highlighted that this fleet upgrade will make for a better customer experience, even focusing on the individual screens at each seat being great for families.

That is a big bet to make, as most customers bring their own screen onboard anyway and when the seat-back screen breaks, the whole flight is ruined for some customers. What United seems to miss is that pleasant employees and proactive responses to unforeseen circumstances are the most customer-friendly things any airline can do.

A flight that is late, with rude or indifferent service by the airport and in-flight staff, is not made into a good experience with with new aircraft and a seat-back screen.