Copyright Photo: Bruce Drum. Please click on photo for full view, information and other photos.

US Airways (Phoenix) has informed its employees that it intends to sell 10 (of 25) Embraer ERJ 190s to an unnamed party (believed to be Republic Airways Holdings). The pilots are opposing this deal because it will reduce the amount of flying. With the pending New York La Guardia – Washington Reagan National slot trade with Delta Air Lines there will be a reduction in flying for US. For Republic this will allow them to bring some ERJ 190s to Denver to operate Frontier Airlines routes (probably operated by Republic Airlines) and Milwaukee, while freeing up some Frontier A319s to operate West Coast and longer range routes for Midwest Airlines from Milwaukee.

News link:

www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/story/10606757/1/pilots-oppose-us-airways-jet-sale.html?cm_ven=YAHOO&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA

Scott Kirby’s letter to the US employees:

Dear Fellow Employees:

At our last State of the Airline employee meeting (July 2009), Doug shared with all of you that we would be exploring the possibility of selling our 25 Embraer190 aircraft. I am writing today to let you know that we are close to finalizing an agreement to sell ten of these aircraft to another carrier.

While this is the right move for our company, it will impact some of our co-workers and that is a decision none of us makes easily. Even though the airline industry is beginning to see improvement in the business environment, our industry is a long way from returning to sustainable profitability. The revenue environment remains challenging and the E-190 capacity presents the only flexibility we have to further reduce capacity to right size supply with demand.

Because we wanted to keep all employees informed about the status of the E-190 fleet, we wanted to let you know where this stands today. Removing ten E-190s from our fleet will reduce flying and have an impact on staffing levels in a number of employee groups and locations. We are still working on the revised schedule and will announce changes as soon as we know them. We realize that people need to know what is happening and how it may impact their lives, and we are committed to getting you that information as soon as we have firm answers to all of the questions you might have.

These are challenging times, but these are the necessary and right steps to take for our airline. We feel very good about the airline we are running (first in on-time among the network carriers year to date) and I thank all of you for delivering every day on our goals. As we continue to run a great airline, and in spite of the uncertainty of the economic challenges, the best thing for all of us to do is remain focused on doing our best to take care of our customers and continue running one of the industry’s on-time performing airlines.

Scott