VacancyBid

The general rule is 1) 500 hrs 2) 1 year. There is a provison for less at the company's option. They are not using that option.

The new contract was designed to make NB captain more attractive. Either that or the slowing pace of growth seems to have worked. Glass half full: there are still unfilled captain spots, which is historically unprecedented. Glass half empty: yes, there are a handful of 737CA slots in SFO. 6 months ago there were dozens (hundreds?) of 737 and 320 slots open in multiple bases system wide and there were even a handful of bids that had 1 or 2 empty 757 CA slots.

If you want to believe my crystal ball about what will be available 12-15 months from now when someone with ... oh lets say 5000 hrs of Yellow A320 PIC ... would want to upgrade, I suspect it will either not be available or would be SF 737 only. I do suspect that some upgrade will become available in your second year, but there's no guarantee. Particuarly if a lot of senior captains bail from sinking ULCC's that might alter the supply/demand dynamics substantially.

Chimpy

hopefully the uptick in retirements helps. FWIW Myself and a whole lot of other NK CAs waiting on Class dates would absolutely jump on SFO/ EWR NB CA. Unfathomable to me people were forced into it a few months ago. I guess a lot of the NHs had very little experience 🤷🏻. Guess I’m a day late, a few dollas short 😂 (as usual)

Hedley

Hiring was slowed due to issues relating to the FAA audit and Boeing/Airbus (mostly Boeing) delivery delays. As a result, the supply of available captain slots has been met by demand in the short term. When deliveries eventually accelerate, I'd expect captain vacancies to once again go unfilled. The 737 will probably be the first available upgrade, however one could bid from 320 FO to 737 CA. The same would be true worked the other way since you'd be moving up in a pay band. I personally welcome every high time captain that we can get considering our quick upgrade times. I had a FO the other day that did a few months at a regional, about 500 hours at Spirit, bid captain here, and is waiting to get 500 hours at United before going to upgrade training. His total time was under 2,500 hours with no PIC, and it showed. I'd much rather have someone like you in command than someone with less than 1500 hours jet time and no command experience.

GoCats67

The current vacancy bid doesn't close for a week, but on the Friday snapshot of the bids there were still 12 unfilled SFO 737 Capt slots. So, even with the slowdown in deliveries mentioned above on the NB planes, plus the slowdown on 787 deliveries, we are still seeing Captain slots not get filled. Barring some kind of major economic event, i would be very surprised if you weren't seeing NB Captain slots still either going unfilled or at least being available to bid during your first year and being able to go to training in the Cap seat as soon as you reach 1 year.

Caveat--- Predicting future seniority progression is a Fool's errand, so know that I am a fool.

Turbosina

But those spots aren't unfilled because nobody wants them. They're unfilled because the company has chosen not to release the freezes on the positions that were made possible by new hires opting out of their CA slot that they were forced into during Indoc in 2023 -- up till April '24.

I'm just below the most junior SFO 73 CA projected awardee on the current vacancy, and I have my CA bid in. But it doesn't look like the company is going to actually fill those unfilled spots. I asked manpower planning about this and was told that even though the company may be showing slots as unfilled, there's no obligation for them to award all of those slots to qualified pilots bidding for them.

Doubleu3

What freezes are you referring to? The Indoc captain awards are still up for grabs. In fact, the last of them are getting eaten up in EWR.

FriendlyPilot

You may not get CA in new hire, but its highly likely you will be able to bid it on one of the first montly vacancy bids. (We had 3 bids in the last 4 weeks, back to back). We still have 700 narrowbody planes being delivered (60 more by the end of the year) and 150 787s which start in September. While NK B6 and F9 are deferring orders, we are taking as many as we can bring on board. Retirements are 400+ per year now going to almost 800 a year by 2028.

You are making the right move coming to United from NK, because with the P&W engine issues plus no new deliveries for 5 years and the next year likely to be treacherous financially, NK and other LCCs will just become more and more irrelevant.

Welcome aboard. Hope you get a class date soon.

VacancyBid

That statement is true. This isn't so much predicting seniority progression as asking whether captain upgrade will return to is STRONG historical norm of something not available to new hires.

Although United still has a gazillion planes on order, I'm curious to see how many growth airframes the US market can soak up.

A320dude

All good insights-thank you. Wish me luck moving over to United. I'm really looking forward to the opportunity.

Chimpy

Thank you! Legitimately really excited to get going.