Unfortunately, we don’t know a ton of details about American’s plans just yet. We do know that American will buy 100 more current generation 737s, 100 737s with new, more efficient engines, 130 current generation A320 series airplanes, and 130 A320neo (new engine option) series airplanes. That comes to a total of 460. How will this massive buy fit into the airline’s fleet? That remains to be seen since American hasn’t said which versions of each series it will take. But we do know something.

When this order is fully filled, the MD-80, 757, and 767-200 will have disappeared from American’s fleet. The MD-80 retirement is no surprise. American has slowly been replacing those with 737-800s, and this will be the nail in the coffin for the older technology, less fuel efficient “Mad Dog” aircraft. I know a lot of people hate MD-80s, but I do have a special place for them. Soon enough, there won’t be any Douglas airplanes flying. Sad.

But time marches on, and it was a given that this would happen. Today, American has 214 MD-80s left in the fleet with 154 737-800s. There were previously 54 737-800s on order, so really, there were just 160 MD-80s that still needed to be replaced. That will undoubtedly happen with the 737 and A320 current generation airplanes on order in some form.

Then there’s the 757. It’s a great airplane that uniquely can fly passengers across the Pond to Europe, over to Hawai’i and into a variety of hot and high locations with ease. No other airplane has been able to duplicate this with so few seats, and even though it’s out of production, the airplane is still a strong performer. American has decided that it can replace it, but I don’t think that will be with one airplane. The 737 can do Hawai’i, the A321neo and next gen 737s should be able to get to Europe. It probably won’t be a one size fits all solution, but with these new-engined airplanes, there is finally a way to replace the 757.

The 767-200 is a niche airplane that primarily flies the JFK to LA and SF routes. That will be easy to replace, and probably should be toast sooner rather than later.

That’s pretty much what we know. The problem, as mentioned, is that we don’t know which airplanes in the series American will actually take. It notes that it has flexibility and can opt for any family member in each series, specifically the 737-700, 737-800, 737-900ER and the A319, A320, and A321 are mentioned. So what will the counts look like of each? We don’t know, and American probably doesn’t know either. The airline does like to talk about what amazing flexibility it has in this deal. It can make changes as it sees fit over time. One thing is clear; this will add a lot of airplanes to the fleet, and it reintroduces Airbus into the Boeing-loyal airline.

I’m still surprised that American bothered ordering from both Boeing and Airbus. It seems to me that Airbus had this thing sewn up thanks to Boeing’s refusal to move on an heir apparent to the 737 while Airbus had the A320neo. When Boeing finally budged (note that the new engine 737 isn’t approved yet by Boeing’s board but is part of the order), it was able to squeeze back in to the race. But why not pick one over the other? It would seem that with a re-engined option, one manufacturer could fill the need. But I think it’s all about money.

As part of this deal, there’s no doubt that American went back and forth to both manufacturers and played them off each other. They got the absolute best deals they could and then, they took them both. That’s a great move. There will be enough airplanes in each fleet to really not make much of a difference whether there’s one type or two. And this way, American can walk away with big money. In fact, the first 230 deliveries are already covered by financing from the two manufacturers. It’s like American is the kid who went up to its parents and asked for money . . . and dad handed over his whole wallet.

But with all these massive orders, American is still going to have a lot more airplanes than it has today. Let’s assume that American retires all its 757s, 767-200s, and MD-80s. That’s 299 airplanes out of the fleet but 460 coming in. Huh? That’s huge growth, and it doesn’t even count the options. I can’t imagine a need for that much growth, so how will this play out?

Some of it could be counting on the new-engined aircraft replacing some of the current generation 737s and A320s that come in, but there could be more to it. And that could lie with American Eagle.

American also announced that it will go ahead in spinning off American Eagle into a separate company. As part of that, the Eagle pilots got a guaranteed path into American with 35 percent of new hire pilots at American required to come from Eagle. American likes to say that it’s spinning off Eagle so that it can fly on its own and can start working for other airlines as well. Yeah, right. Eagle is expensive compared to other providers, and its chances aren’t great for getting new flying. The reality is that American really just wants to start looking for other airlines to do some of its express flying for less. So it spins Eagle off and slowly shrinks it into oblivion.

But remember, today American flies nothing smaller than the 140 seat MD-80. What if it chooses to get A319 and 737-700 airplanes as part of this order? You figure those would fly in around a 120 to 124 seat configuration. With that smaller airplane, could American start bringing mainline flights back to places that are served with 70 seaters today?

It might be a stretch, especially since my assumption is that the pilots aren’t going to work for less to win that flying back. But there are a lot of routes out there that are on 70 seaters today, like Chicago to Atlanta, that might work better with a larger airplane. American hasn’t had that type of capacity for years, so we have no idea how the airline would use it. But it could be a way of reducing dependence on Eagle, if labor is willing to take on the challenge.

In the end, we really don’t know what American’s strategy is. I doubt American even fully knows what it’s going to do with all these airplanes. But it is encouraging to see the airline make these moves. American is finally, actually, going to try to do something about its cost problem instead of continuing to whine about how others will eventually catch up. With sweetheart financing from the manufacturers and much more fuel efficient aircraft, this should help the airline keep costs down. If only we had more details to know for sure . . .

[Original Aircraft Photo via Flickr user JF10/CC 2.0]

Here’s what’s happening.

• JetBlue is ordering 40 A320neo aircraft. These are the re-engined A320s that offer fuel savings and greater range.
• JetBlue has 52 regular A320s on order now. Thirty of those will be converted to larger A321s and eight will be pushed back a couple years. All A320s will have winglets installed.
• JetBlue will grow its Embraer 190 fleet to only 75. Previously it was going to be 100 with options for more.

If there was any question where JetBlue was planning to go in the next few years, we know now the answer for sure. It starts with CEO Dave Barger’s BlueNote (internal memo) which says this:

I believe that our network strategy focused on Boston and the Caribbean/Latin America has given us the right to grow.

In other words, JFK is good but it’s not a huge growth opportunity. That’s largely an airport constraint, but it’s a reality. So growth will be in Boston (which has already been growing like crazy) and in the Caribbean/Latin America, where we’ve actually seen some pretty good growth as well. Everywhere else? It’s just going to be a matter of how they fit into these focus areas.

The upgrade to the A321 makes a lot of sense in this context. It’s a bigger airplane, and that means more seats. There are 150 seats on a JetBlue A320, and I’d bet we’d see about 30+ more on the A321. It costs less per seat to fly those airplanes, so for markets with high demand, it’s a no-brainer. To me, it seems that this airplane can do really well flying between the Northeast/South US and Latin/Caribbean markets. Those are markets that are highly leisure so they don’t need as much frequency. That’s why American used to fly its big old A300 aircraft down to the Caribbean. Load ‘em up and ship ‘em out.

Interestingly, JetBlue also sees an opportunity “in the potential application of the 321 on some of our heavy transcon markets such as JFK-LAX, JFK – San Francisco.” I can see some limited use there, but I expect the A321 won’t be seen on the west coast nearly as much. This does however highlight the shift in focus from Long Beach and Oakland to LAX and San Francisco for longer haul flights.

The A320neo, however, will likely fly west far more often. One of the problems JetBlue faces, especially during winter months when winds are strong, is a lack of range on the A320. This is particularly an issue for flights from Boston, which you’ll often see in cities like Vegas or Salt Lake because they ran out of gas on their way to California. The A320neo will give a range boost that will allow those airplanes to make it without any trouble.

Then again, this might not be necessary. With JetBlue also putting winglets on its current A320s, those airplanes should be able to make it as well. So the A320neo will just provide a more fuel efficient airplane that might make marginally unprofitable flights today a reality tomorrow. Or it could make wildly profitable flights even more wildly profitable. The reality is that if you want to order an A320 these days, you order the neo unless you have an urgent need in the next couple years. (You listening, Boeing? That 737 isn’t going to cut it for much longer.)

The last piece of this announcement is the Embraer 190. That really was David Neeleman’s baby as he envisioned opening up smaller markets with that plane and its 33 percent fewer seats than the A320. That dream is not the dream of JetBlue today, that’s for sure. The plan was originally to have around 100 Embraer 190s in the fleet (and there were options for more), but JetBlue is cutting that back to 75. This could be an alteration to the existing order, but it sounds like there might be a plan to instead lease out or sell 25 of the airplanes in one way or another.

The 190 is an interesting story. Many of its routes were failures – places like Columbus, Ohio and Nashville quickly disappeared when they just didn’t work. Now JetBlue thinks it’s found good placement for 75 of the airplanes but it doesn’t want any more than that. There are only 46 today, so there will still be more growth in the fleet, but it’s just not as rosy as the airline once thought. The 190 is taking a back seat.

To me, the upshot of this announcement is that JetBlue affirms its position as an east coast airline and it’s tailoring its fleet to fit the missions it wants to fly. The Boston-New York-Caribbean-Latin markets are clearly the focus. What about the west coast? Seems like we won’t be seeing much if anything out here. Maybe the A320neo will enable Hawai’i flying but that’s years away, and I wouldn’t count on it. Instead, the west cost will continue to be a spoke that feeds the east coast with the exception of the small short haul outpost in Long Beach. At least, that’s how it looks today.

Or maybe not. A sharklet is actually just a winglet with a cool name, and Airbus is going to put them on A320s, if the buyer so chooses. “But wait,” you say, “doesn’t the A320 already have winglets?” Well, sort of, but not really. Those little guys in the top photo above that go above and below the wing are technically wingtip fences. Yeah, I know. Whatever. But these new ones will look more like the big ones you see on a 737 that are blended into the wing and point up. Here’s an actual mock from Airbus of what they’ll look like.

The upshot here is that winglets are good. They reduce the wake given off by the wings and that means that the airplane is more fuel efficient – by 3.5% in fact. Hooray, environment saved, right?

Yeah, that’s a nice thing but there’s another big benefit here. Better fuel efficiency with the same sized fuel tanks means that each plane can go further on a tank of gas. In this case, it is estimated that an A320 can go another 110 miles on the same amount of gas.

That may not sound like a lot, but have you ever been on an A320 heading west and had to make an unexpected stop in Vegas? Salt Lake? JetBlue fliers know what I’m talking about. During the winter, the winds kick up and that means flights east are shorter with the wind at their back. But flights west have to go right into that wind and it can slow things down significantly to the point where they don’t have enough fuel to make it the whole way. So an extra 110 miles can really help on those long sectors.

There is one problem here. The winglets, or sharklets as they’re calling them, are only for new-build A320s. I guess there’s enough wing work required that so far they don’t have a program for retrofitting existing airplanes, but they say one is in the works. Hmm, that sucks. I’m sure some airlines want it now.

But it’s good for airlines like Air New Zealand which conveniently just announced an order for Airbus narrowbodies to replace their Boeing fleet. They’ll be getting sharklets first.

So one day, you’ll be spared that painful fuel stop on a domestic flight, and you’ll have to remember to thank those big, hulking sharklets bouncing at the end of the wing.

• Can we just think about what happened for a minute? Un-friggin-believable! A full A320 (nice loads for a midday, midweek trip in January, by the way) ditches into the ocean river, everyone lives, and the plane stays intact.




• I keep hearing that bird strikes brought the plane down, but it’s way too early for us to know that. It sounds like there probably was a bird strike, but that doesn’t mean it was the cause for what happened. Let’s wait until the NTSB tells us more.




• Everyone’s calling the pilots heroes, but I bet they’ll tell you they were just doing their jobs. Also, while the landing was truly amazing, we don’t know that the pilots didn’t contribute to the fact it had to ditch in the first place just yet. Again, let’s wait for the NTSB.




• If I have to watch one more news teaser that says, “We have birds here in LA, see what LAX is doing to prevent them from flying into engines,” I’m gonna lose it.




• What’s the chance this gets people to actually pay attention to the safety demo before the flights from now on? Nah.




• US Airways really put out a lot of communication yesterday with what appears to be four updates, one being a briefing from CEO Doug Parker. That looks pretty good, but the ultimate test will be how the airline deals with the passengers that were onboard. I’m sure the ambulance-chasers are circling as we speak. Grrrr.




• Wanna see something cool? Check out Passur’s AirportMonitor. Put in January 15, 2009 at 15:25 and watch the plane on radar as it takes off, curves around, and finally puts down in the river. Cool.




• As a former America West guy, I first wondered if it was one of the “West” (former America West) planes, but it’s not. It was N106US, an “East” (former US Airways) plane which would have turned 10 years old this year.




• I thought this was the first modern jet to have ditched into the water and maintained full structural integrity, but it doesn’t appear that way. Apparently a JAL DC-8 in 1968 ditched in San Francisco Bay and the plane actually returned to service! See more ditchings, some more successful than others.




• Did you see how fast those ferries got to that airplane? In that freezing weather, that must have really saved some lives.