Squallrider

Latest number passed down recently is 750 new hires a year indefinitely. I don’t get it since we max retirements at 250 or so a year so it must be significant growth. Of course all numbers are subject to change but that’s what was said presently.

WHACKMASTER

I also don’t get why they’re upgrading 600ish next year. I know that FOs are in far worse shape but open time, premium, etc. is DRY on the Cptn’s side. I can’t imagine how slim the pickings are gonna be after all the upgrades.

I truly don’t understand where they’re going with all of this hiring and upgrades next year. Not complaining but I am scratching my head.

ZapBrannigan

My opinion (which isn’t worth a thing) is that they have made the decision to shut down the premium marketplace, and train the pilot group to seek out straight time if we want to pad our month.

They tested it with the FOs and if the lack of available flying in TTGA is any indication they were successful.

Is it possible they have just decided to staff like every other airline?


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Stitches

A couple things come to mind. The first is a mind shift in how reserves are used. The company has finally come around to the way of thinking where they don’t burn ALL the reserves a day prior and resort to massive reroutes and JA’s to solve each inevitable crisis during the busy periods. They’ve increased manning accordingly.

Another issue is our training requirements have almost doubled from the past few years and we haven’t even started etops training yet. Several pilots I fly with have mentioned that they cut back their flying with the latest contract. Also, the company can see future bookings so they have an early look at demand.

I don’t think it’s 1 big thing but several smaller factors combined. With a 9500 pilot group even small percentage increases can add up to big hiring numbers.

Smokey23

You may be right, but that would seem to shake up decades of conventional wisdom about labor costs at this airline (i.e., cheaper to run lean staffing & pay premium, then to staff 'adequately'). All I ever hear about from the ground ops side of the operation, is how expensive it is to bring in & train one more ramper (so we're okay with letting you guys hold out another 15 min at MDW, BWI, or LAS waiting for a marshaller ). You'd think it would add another cost order of magnitude beyond a ramper to bring on another pilot, but who knows anymore? Every fiefdom at this airline is solely focused on making their 'numbers' regardless of how it affects the overall operation or bottom line. A casualty of our size & efforts to continually Redefine Excellence, I suppose...

Burton78

I tend to agree. I consistently have trips in TTGA picked up that I would never have imagined been taken this time last year. This same theory of eliminating premium was brought up 6 or so months ago, and I disregarded it because I was still flying premium with relative ease. Now I feel that I stand corrected as the premium well is increasingly dry with excessive reserves and first year FOs constantly bidding straight.

In the same breath, part of me still feels this may be temporary as I can't imagine hiring extra pilots to stamp out a little premium flying is cost beneficial to the company. Im anxiously waiting and hoping to see if the LAX base opening accompanied with Hawaii flying will return staffing and in turn, premium flying back to normalcy.

BTW, does anyone have the projected fleet numbers for the next few years?

hoover

Didn't the union put out in a RP this summer that paying for all the open time trips as premium first would only cost the company 4 more crews worth of pay.
That's nothing. I don't think it has anything to do with getting rid of premium . That's just a consequence of what their planning 5 yrs down the road . I don't know what that is but they have 5, 10 and 20 yr plans. We could just be in a phase of one of those plans

e6bpilot

Open time is dry on the captain side because of two things.
1. It’s October.
2. Captain open time behavior is way different than FOs. They bid straight earlier and there are a lot more captains who are in the 150+ a month club. Someone told me PHX CA elitt net zero is +25 and MCO is +10. That’s unheard of on the FO side.

The balance of the force is way out of whack (pun intended) right now. We are way over staffed on FOs. Take a look at the weekend reserve call out lists and you will see it.

e6bpilot

I agree that this is part of the sine wave of hiring. Hiring pilots has always been a long lead time proposition.

When you need a captain to do flight x, you have to consider interviewing 2 FOs, hiring them, training them through IOE, then upgrading one FO through UOE. That process takes a while. Throw in a delay for ETOPS certification and you see where this is going.

October, January, and February magnify overmanning just like June-August do for undermanning.

This too shall pass, hopefully soon!

Peacock

The good news is for FO’s in base on reserve. So far this month I’ve had nine days of reserve and flew one easy two day. I have to go back over a month for my last flight before that. Last month I flew one three day, and a sim since I’m in Dallas.

I’m too junior to get premium anyway, so if I want high tfp, I just bid straight on occasional easy trips on my off days. It’s not hard at all to get 120-140 tfp only actually flying 6-10 days. A couple months ago I did 138tfp on eight days of flying, only three nights away.