Stored Aircraft

UA still has 777’s and 744’s parked. If US starts selling planes, I don’t think these A319’s will be the first to go. I’m sure they could find customers for their slightly older 733’s and 734’s and give them up for a nominal fee. Interestinly enough, when I was in Ft. Lauderdale a few weeks back and did some spotting, 90% of US’s operation in FLL (including the plane I flew with into there) was the 734. Why would these birds be circulating and much newer A319’s be parked up? Is it a capacity thing since the 734’s are bigger?

Don’t know about this particular storage, but it might be that US Airways have stored them in anticipation of better times.

My own company (SAS) has several MD-80s and 737s stored here and there (mainly Dinard and Riga). Some of them have returned to service, some have been leased out. The most recent is the lease of a few MD-80s to the new low-cost startup airline JetX, although in this case the aircraft came out of the active fleet.

Lufthansa has also returned several aircraft into service from storage, so it might just be that US Airways have put them in storage for the time being, awaiting an increasing traffic demand.

I don’t believe that US Airways has sold any of their fleet even though a good part of it is sitting in the desert. Now that there are talks of them re-entering bankrupcy they just might start to sell those airplanes.