WXS15

​​​​​​The hiring boom will continue right up until it stops. If anyone can accurately forecast that, they could be making a lot more money on Wall Street. United pilots were no where near striking. United had not even gone to meditation, much less request release to self help. Look at the timeline for Southwest.
If you are considering coming to United and don't already have an app in, you are giving up 200+ spots on the seniority list every month...

LAXtoDEN

If you’re hired at United today you’d retire at a higher number than AA (by a LOT) and now even Delta with all the hiring we’ve done since 2014 at Delta. You read that correctly, you will now retire more senior at Delta compared to United.

United hiring knows this and right around the time new hires with multiple offers started to figure that out followed by the fact United has already hired enough pilots to cover their retirements for the next decade suddenly “rumors” from “TK” claimed 26,000 pilots. I guess they realized nobody believed that number because it was so far fetched they decided 20,000 seems more realistic.

I’ll bet 18,000 pilots by 2030 for each of the big 3. All 3 are hiring 200+ a month. So yeah you missed the train with United, but don’t expect United pilots to tell you that as they want bodies behind them to save themselves from potential furlough.

PilotJ3

Delta will be at 18k by next year. We are currently at around 16500, maybe a bit higher.

Delta new hire in their 30s will retire about 10% at the current list size.

LAXtoDEN

We’re are slowing down hiring to 150 a month. We will not be at 18,000 by next year…

There’s a combined graph that shows your seniority progression at the big 3. I was shocked that at American as a 30 year old you’re retiring under 2%.

PilotJ3

16500 + 800ish for the rest of the year (still hiring 200 until December) = 17300 - 300(ish retirements) = 17,000. Then it will slow down to 150/month

150 x 12 = 1800 - 500 retirements = 1300 + 17000 = 18,300 end of 2024.

If age 67 pases I can see hiring less. Those are all approximate numbers, I don’t want to look a the hard hard numbers.

A new hire toda at AA will retire 2%, those were our numbers about 3 yrs ago. Difference is that AA will need to hire more than 2k a yr to stay the same size, their training dept always have worse issues than DAL/UAL. This is the graph you’re looking for.

RippinClapBombs

AAL is retiring about 900 a year for the next 4-5 years. Retirement’s won’t slow down until the mid 2030’s. That’s historic numbers obviously but they don’t need to hire 2,000 a year to stay the same size. We have a class every week with 60 new hires. They don’t have any new hires in June/December to allow the system to get caught back up and avoid training delays. If they keep hiring at this rate the average should be 2,700 a year. It’s funny I’ve heard 18,000 total as well at AAL by late 2024 but that was months ago from a recruiter I spoke with.

I’ll speculate, each legacy will have over 20,000 by 2030. UAL has the most WB’s so they should have slightly more pilots than AAL and DAL but that’s very dependent on growth vs replacements with the NB’s.

Hedley

When it comes to pilot hiring, there are no hard numbers until you have the benefit of hindsight. I’ve lost count over the years how many hiring forecast proved to be incorrect.

This is how hiring rumors should be viewed in this industry:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdYyKKpxzcA

hummingbear

This. It’s amazing to me how in 2 years of good times we’ve all quickly adapted to the idea that nothing will ever go wrong again. I recognize we’re in an unprecedented hiring environment where choice is the norm, & I can definitely see an older guy betting on the horse that’s likely to give him the most rapid seniority accrual for his remaining years. But if I was a young guy, I wouldn’t be putting much stock into anyone’s claims of what their airline is going to look like in 30+ years.

Sniper66

there will be a furlough by 2030
I believe that.
history will repeat it self as it always does

it’s the economy wave every decade

nene

All it takes is for Iran to close the straight or hormuz (or credibly attempt to) to drive the price of oil sky high, making the costs explode.

Good thing we keep giving them $$$Billions in cash in "deals"

But risk will always be there, sometimes from events that couldn't even be foreseen.
So enjoy the good times and as they say in 'Norlans "Laissez les bons temps rouler!"