After a year of pandemic travel restrictions and stay-at-home orders, United Airlines
The big buy comes as something of a surprise less than a year after United furloughed more than 13,000 employees, ostensibly due to the company's inability to afford to pay wages. Earlier that year, United received roughly $5 billion in federal payroll support by promising not to lay off any employees through the end of September. News of the layoffs came on October 1.
United has not provided a price tag for what it claims is the biggest jet purchase placed by an airline in the U.S. in the past ten years. The 270 plane order doesn't include another 230 planes which the company had already ordered.
While the business and international flights are still depressed, domestic travel is making a comeback. As travel returns to normal, United is planning for the next big thing.
"It's a plan that's a nose-to-tail plan for the future," said United's Andrew Nocella, speaking to reporters on Monday. "And it's something we've actually been working on for many, many years."
The narrow-body planes on order are meant to replace some older machines as well as expand United's fleet. Narrow-body planes are the most commonly used for domestic flights.
With the additional planes, United hopes to be able to offer more daily departures. The company also has plans to add seats, carry-on storage space, and improved entertainment to its existing narrow-body planes over the next several years.
"It's really making the gate-checked bags a thing of the past," United's Toby Enqvist said of the improvements on a call to reporters. "We're going to have space for each and every customer's [carry-on luggage] ... even on a full flight."
United is purchasing 70 Airbus A321neo aircraft, as well as 200 Boeing 737 Max planes. The 737 Max series has been back in service for six months after being grounded for nearly two years due to multiple safety risks, including a deadly flaw in the software that resulted in two crashes and 346 deaths. Internal documents from Boeing later revealed a lack of trust in the safety of the new plane long before the deadly crashes occurred.
"This airplane is designed by clowns who are in turn supervised by monkeys," one employee said.
"I still haven't been forgiven by God for the cover-up I did last year," another employee wrote of Boeing's alleged efforts to mislead regulators.
However, it seems that the possible bad press regarding the Max 737 isn't the pushback that United is anticipating. Instead, the company seems to be expecting pushback regarding making such a large investment so soon after accepting taxpayer assistance. Seemingly in an effort to avoid this criticism, the company has heavily focused on the possible benefits this purchase could have for the U.S., citing the addition of 25,000 unionized United jobs.
It's worth noting that this order will be completed over the course of several years, and bulk airplane orders are apparently subject to change, according to aviation industry analyst Richard Aboulafia.
"We're talking about the last of these planes being delivered, if things are great, four or five years hence," Aboulafia told NPR. "If they're not so great, six or seven years hence. If they're terrible, how about never - does never work for you?"
