Assuming 737 or A320 how long (ballpark) would it take to hold day turns out of IAH as a new hire F.O.?

A long time. I just looked at the 737 FO Jan awards and somewhere around 2006 hire lCAL/1999 hire lUAL is able to hold a mix of 1 and 2 days. Pure day trips is even worse. There are a ton of locals in IAH and day trips tend to be super senior.

I’ll add that on the bus it’s about the same. The day trips are fewer than on the east coast relative to the overall bid packet, so even though the top bidders aren’t asking for them, there aren’t many to go around.

Get out now.

In two years a majority of the massive hiring will be accomplished and you will find yourself on the back end of the bathtub. That means your seniority will grow mostly based on retirements and not the massive wedge effect created by 50 new hire classes of a min of 50 students a year.

You can go guard/reserve, stay on orders as you build seniority. Plus the guard and reserve orders option is solid if there is a downturn.

In regards to Houston. 3 months ago it was one of the most senior bases. As a 73 FO new hire I’m at 69% at IAH now. That’s just incredible.

So get out of that contract any way you can and get on the bus early. Seniority is everything in the airlines.

Thank you both for the excellent info, this is exactly what I was hoping to hear about. Generally speaking would 73 be better for being able to hold preferred days off sooner than A320 or are both fleets about the same in that department as well?

If you are a 320 IAH pilot, could you possibly please DM me. I have a couple of questions to asks. I don't want to bog the thread down.

Happy Holidays all!

You will not have much power to linehold particular days off within the first two years, after which point you can switch if desired.

That answer is almost always going to be the 73. Not just because the overall cockpit ****tiness encourages folks to leave to fly something else thus improving seniority movement, and we're buying far more 73's than airbuses, but the 73 bases are much bigger so trades are much more likely to happen. So even if you can't bid a certain day off, you have a hundred or so more pilots who might want to take that trip off your hands.

They are about the same in relative seniority. A random 2015 hire number is about 14% on the bus and 16% on the 737.