nitram

Dec 7 interview date- just got the CJO today!! Absolutely pumped to join the team and am humbled by those who helped me get to where I am today.

MarineFAC

6 Jan interview, called today from Dallas chief pilot and start training 10 Feb 16.

OB Pilot

Congrats to everyone who got the good news call today! We are very happy to have you coming on board. If you all are interested in any bases out west you will be off reserve very quickly.

getmeout

Interview December 10th
CJO today
No class date
9,000 total
4,000 jet PIC
4 year non-aviation degree
All civilian/regional
Multiple job fairs
Volunteer experience
Not a checkairman
No type
Extremely thankful for the tremendous resource this forum has been. Truly a dream come true.

guyute74

Congrats! Hope to see you there.

HERKMAN

17 years? Really? with this much hiring going on?

OB Pilot

Instead of making projections nearly 2 decades out in an industry that doesn't support that amount of clarity in any way, let's just say we can guarantee new hires will not upgrade in 5 years. As a company we have fewer retirements than the three large legacy carriers and only one fleet type. There aren't any lower paying airplanes in a less desirable location for pilots who only want to upgrade as fast as possible to bid into. Kind of similar to Alaska in that respect. Anything beyond about 5 years in this industry is a complete guess anyway, no matter what anyone tells you for any company.

CODs4ever

Congrats my UAV brother!!!! Totally awesome.

On another note, kind of surprised only 3 or 4 out of 8 got hired in that other post. Seems like the percentages are typically much higher.

FLY6584

I just ran the numbers on myseniority.com and this is what I came up with:

I'm an October 2015 hire and if you assume 0% growth and a relative seniority of 56% it shows I will upgrade in October of 2029. So, 14 years to upgrade assuming no growth and just retirements.

Now if you assume a 2% growth with the same relative seniority of 56% required to bid Captain then it says I will upgrade in December of 2026. So, 11 years and 3 months to upgrade and at that point we would have grown from 8127 pilots on the seniority list to 9907 pilots.

Now, Gary Kelly says he wants to see us grow from 3500 flights a day and 700 aircraft to 5000 flights a day and 1000 aircraft. If we assume the same pilot to flight/aircraft ratio that we have today we would need 11,610 pilots to meet that growth.

So, if I run the seniority calculator at a 4% growth it says I will upgrade in October of 2024, a 9 year upgrade, and we will have 11,123 pilots on the seniority list.

In the end, no one has a crystal ball and knows how much we will grow. What we do know is worst case scenario with no growth it's less than a 15 year upgrade and if we grow like they say we want to it could be less than 10 years.

ZapBrannigan

I know it's all academic but also consider that some percentage of pilots don't make it to 65 between early retirements, medicals, etc. plus, the more senior the group becomes the greater impact vacation has on the staffing formula. All of that may knock off another year or so to the projection.

Bottom line is that there isn't the guaranteed near term retirements at SW that exist elsewhere right now. But this isn't the commuters and it's not a race to the left seat anymore either. If this is the kind of flying you enjoy, then enjoy it and don't spend the next decade wishing the guy next to you would keel over.