Gone Flying

yeah it is crazy. right before Covid getting hired at 30 meant retiring around 200, and 35 still retired around 1,000. Not so much now.

also I’m pretty sure our average new hire age has come down, from 36-37 before Covid now in the low 30s. It all adds up.

Viper25

In all the ALPA weekly updates over the past couple of years it seems like the average age per class is 35-36

Forgotmyhat

Has anyone heard what the end state plan is as far as number of pilots on property? Should be close to 17,000 by the end of this year. About 500 retirements a year for the next few years, but it sounds like even with a slow down in hiring, the list is still growing at around 500 a year. When do we hit equilibrium?

PilotBases

It has, it’ll get dragged down a little bit now the EDV flows are all post-merge hires and probably in their early 30s, late 20s.

Gone Flying

yeah you are right, not sure what I was thinking of but the median age of a 2022 hire is 36

Baradium

Not as far as the forecast goes out.

PilotBases

Rock and roll. The last pre COVID hire should be what, 60 something % this time next year? Incredible movement for not even 4 years on property.

Dorfman

At the road show they addressed this, they did a good job explaining the logic.
The extra pay considerations for are not necessarily there to pay us more. They are there to disincentivize the company from building crappy rotations like the do now. If they don’t it will cost them money, money they don’t want to spend. These steps are meant to reign in the bad trip construction.

The NC admitted it won’t make the trips perfect but it is a big step in the right direction.

Scoop

The sub 5 year upgrades will slow and may totally stop with perhaps the exception of NYC - either way upgrade times will definitely be increasing. The more important factor is will steady hiring continue? If steady hiring continues everyone has options - stay in a junior B seat and rapidly accrue seniority and work it! "Work it like a new boy should." Or bid into a WB B as soon as possible and enjoy a solid QOL gain.

I was hired two years before 9-11 and my timing pretty much sucked but I still managed to enjoy a pretty good career and the last 10 years (sans covid) have been great. I would have killed for slow and steady hiring - we had multiple year periods were most people moved backwards. You can make solid coin and enjoy a great QOL in the right seat and upgrades while they may not be sub 2 years will generally be pretty rapid by historical standards.

Remember though, the next black swan can and will change all of this but when is that? Tomorrow or in 10 years? Historically they seem to average about one a decade.

Scoop

saturn

When discussing a seniority number to reach WB A in ones career, keep in mind you're probably being conservative if you just snap shot 2023:

1. We have 112 WBs at top rate, but a WB fleet of 150+ if including 767-300s. Those 45 ERs are being replaced by larger WBs, and will be gone in a decade. Even in a static 1-1 replacement/zero growth model, WB A will be a higher seniority number.
2. As the airline grows over the course of your career, so should total pilot headcount. Relative seniorty to reach the WB A may likely be the same %, but arrive at a higher digit seniority number. Another factor is if we grow international block hours at a higher rate than we normally do.

Lots of unknowns and black swans over 30+year career. But assuming today 3k seniorty number to hold WB A could end up being 6k in 2040.