Around the ramp at the home field, MZJ
- Thread starter MikeD
- Start date
Cptnchia
Dissatisfied Customer
Take your pick:
Oh my. Where do I get one of those? Mute importantly, where do I full it up?
amorris311
Well-Known Member
I believe they get a new lease on life with FedEx in the coming months.
ChasenSFO
hen teaser
I've seen a lot of them taxi out from United's MOC(Mx Ops Center) here at SFO with the titles and logos plucked and takeoff for the last time before conversion. Must have seen 2 dozen by now and have shot pics of 4 or 5. Always sad, especially when I go nerd mode and look up the tail number to see if I've flown on it, usually I have. I'll miss the days of the 757s when all the transcons are 737-800/900s for United. Great airplane.
Cherokee_Cruiser
Bronteroc
Sad to see those Evergreen planes. I enjoyed working there in Flight Ops. Good place with great people, I hope they all land on their feet at a better place.
Maximilian_Jenius
Super User
Is FedEx buying both engines options available to the 757, or do they prefer a specific one?
Skåning
Well-Known Member
I spent a lot of time (3.5 years) in the jumpseat of those 757s commuting between IAH and LAX, when I was at XJT. They were a nice ride home, even though UA only had one jumpseat up front (and it was the high seat). In contrast the CAL 757s had two and GPS, for the little difference that made to me, the crews were all hospitable and courteous. They'll be missed!
SmoothLanderJ
Well-Known Member
Maximillian_Jenius said:
Both I believe
amorris311
Well-Known Member
They take whatever they can get their hands on. they have hunted both high and low for every available 757.
Maximilian_Jenius
Super User
The current market should be pretty flooded with 757's, I would think.
amorris311
Well-Known Member
True, but with depreciation some perfectly good airplanes get scrapped because on paper they aren't worth a dime.
The Delta 757s and 767-200/300s here at MZJ are being gutted and scrapped, and there's a fair number of them here. Which is interesting because the DC-9-50s of Delta (former NWA birds) are stored, but not being picked apart .....yet at least.
amorris311
Well-Known Member
I think it has something to do with owning rather than leasing. I'm no expert when it comes to voodoo accounting. I remember the first 777 being scrapped and wondered why, did a little digging and found that on paper it wasn't worth a cent and they could make more by scrapping.
A Life Aloft
Well-Known Member
They already converted over and placed 17 or 18 757's that they had purchased and I thought they still had more to convert. (they bought a boat load of them from UAL) I didn't know they were still shopping for more of them. They also still have a bunch that are stored. Don't they have orders in for a slew (like 46 or 47) of new 767-300's and more 777's? At least that was what I remembered from a conversation I had with someone about that a few months back.
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That doesn't make sense to me.
A Life Aloft
Well-Known Member
If you are talking about the first 200 that was scrapped....it was scraped after almost 12 years in service. It had been bought new by BA. BA flew it for a number of years, then she went to Khalifa- who went belly up, then she went to Varig- and they also had severe financial issues also, so who knows how well it was even maintained at some point. It was also heavily parted out and not just scrapped. I would imagine that all the major components including the engines were worth a large heap of money. By this time newer versions were already out and flying longer distances.
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ChasenSFO
hen teaser
Happens sometimes. When Frontier decided they had no place for the A318s, which were between 7-9 years old I think, they sent them to GYR to be scrapped for parts. Must have been a lot of life left in them, but there wasn't much of a market for them and most of their parts would work on the other narrow body Airbuses so that's how they met their early demise.
FedEx is so thirsty for airplanes right now, they've leased some 767-300s with winglets from LAN Cargo, not sure for how long.
A Life Aloft
Well-Known Member
Tres años.
Ecl!pse
Well-Known Member
It's actually not so much voodoo accounting (nor lease/own - to an extent) for a part-out, it's more about the same supply/demand economic dynamics that affect every part of our industry.
Generally speaking, an airplane will be parted out when it's value can no longer be extracted by the owner. For an airline that owns the airplane, the part-out usually comes when the sum of future maintenance payments outweighs the revenue potential of the airplane (similar to a car). For a lessor/financier that owns the airplane, the part-out usually comes when the residual value (and hence, lease rates) has dropped to a point that can no longer recover the initial investment in the aircraft - this usually happens if there is an oversupply of aircraft in the market, or if technical obsolescence has dried up demand (think 737 classics vs. 737NGs). Other situations could be fuel prices climbing to levels that make the older-aircraft uneconomic, interest rates being low enough that new-aircraft financing is more attractive, new environmental/noise regulations, etc.
You enter a unique paradigm when individual shells can be parted out and their parts are worth more than the airplane itself. The same dynamics apply as above - something has driven demand for that type, or that specific aircraft, to uneconomic levels. For both airlines/lessors, these are usually "first off the line" or "last off the line" deliveries - these types are stripped for parts rather than being remarketed and sold/re-leased. The early manufacturing hiccups usually burden the performance of the plane (think re-work in the factory adds weight to the plane), making it difficult for the operator to justify the expense for little-to-no performance savings. With a large backlog of future deliveries, parts from the engine, landing gear, avionics, etc. can be easily stripped and sold as spares to carriers that need them and can now get more attractive rates with increased supply in the market. Same applies to last-off-the-line airplanes - their parts can be used toward either next-generation deliveries (where parts are shared), or toward the current-generation in-service fleet.
TL;DR - it's all in the economics, not really any different than selling the seats on the bus!
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