Planes, Trains and Gas-mobiles

Airlines in Parking Mode:

• Along with suspending Ted, United said it would remove 100 aircraft from its fleet, including six Boeing 747-400 long-range jets, and 94 Boeing 737 medium-range planes. (NYT 06/05/2008).
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Northwest will ground 14 Boeing 757 and Airbus jets during the final three months of 2008. It also said that only 61 of its aging DC-9 jets would remain in its fleet by the end of December. It had 94 DC-9s at the beginning of 2008, and 103 a year ago.(NYT 06/18/2008).
• American Airlines Inc.'s parent, AMR Corp., said it has begun the first round of reductions to its flight schedule and will retire up to 85 aircraft as part of its previously announced plans to reduce capacity. (Businessweek, 05/27/2008)

• Continental said that it is accelerating the removal of its fleets of old Boeing 737-300 and 737-500 short-haul jets with the retirement of 73 aircraft including six previously announced. Of the total, 43 will be removed this year and 30 in 2009. The entire 737-300 fleet will be grounded by the end of next year.

Trains

From NYT, 06/21/2008 - "Amtrak set records in May, both for the number of passengers it carried and for ticket revenues — all the more remarkable because May is not usually a strong travel month.

But the railroad, and its suppliers, have shrunk so much, largely because of financial constraints, that they would have difficulty growing quickly to meet the demand."

Gasmobiles, aka automobiles

While airlines are parking their inefficient planes and Amtrak has already retired quite a few old cars, GM is pounding the pavement in trying to sell its and pick-ups.

GM offers deals to cut overstock The General Motors Corporation said on Monday that it would offer six-year, no-interest loans on slow-selling models for the rest of June as it closes out a dismal second quarter.

When Buying A Gas Guzzler Makes Sense

Buying a gas guzzler never makes sense when one takes a broader, societal point of view.