never did I say that AA doesn't benefit from new aircraft or investments. I said they are benefitting from a newer mainline fleet but the return on investment is not as great because fuel prices are lower; fuel is part of the formula and not the only one but lower fuel prices mean the return on investment will take longer.
Also, no one ever said that AA should not invest in aircraft. The concern that analysts who have addressed AA's fleet strategy have is that AA has the highest level of fleet expenditures among US airlines.
It absolutely costs money to replace fleet - regional or mainline.
The difference is balance - how much improvement each carrier can get in their finances compared to its peers for the amount of investment it makes.
AA is investing in fleet at a level far higher than its peers.
and lest you and others think this is just an AA vs DL comparison, you would do well to consider that WN's fleet is considerably older than some of the legacies and WN is not replacing its fleet at the speed to push down its fleet age.
and a major portion of what DL is spending on fleet is to move capacity from regional carriers to mainline, which also serves to push down mainline CASM because DL mainline is growing and growth is a proven strategy to push down CASM. IN contrast and as FWAAA noted, AA is growing its mainline capacity at a much slower rate than its peers which means a great deal of its fleet expenditures are going to mainline fleet replacement.
AA's regional capacity is growing at a much faster rate than AA mainline and other competitors. Given that AA is increasing gauge on its mainline fleet which is actually shrinking in numbers, AA mainline is shrinking but capacity is increasing because of larger aircraft while AA's regional carriers are increasing number of seats per aircraft as well as number of aircraft.
IN contrast, DL and to a lesser extent UA so far is reducing its regional carrier aircraft size (gauge) while shifting flying from regional carriers to mainline and in the process are pushing down their mainline and system costs. WN even without the regional carrier issue is also increasing gauge and number of flights.
AA is not pushing down mainline CASM to the same extent because of new aircraft purchases - their investor update says that AA's mainline CASM growth will accelerate as the year progresses to as high as 5-8% by the end of the year. They are investing in a lot of new aircraft but they are not pushing mainline CASM down.
AA is simply spending more money on aircraft and not getting the same cost benefit as other airlines from its expenditure right now.
