Originally Posted by pilotgolfer

777 DCA ????

If you are looking strictly at the bidding screen, I would guess that doesn't reflect the backfill secondary awards?? My numbers didn't change at all on my current fleet and there were at least a dozen guys senior to me that were bidding off.

Originally Posted by ugleeual

true… the list is out and a lot of backfills...

Originally Posted by APC225

From someone who counted, "..there were 725 vacancies advertised, 879 awarded with 376 unfilled."

Wow. That's a lot of movement, training, upgrades. Never imagined those types of numbers.

Originally Posted by ugleeual

true… the list is out and a lot of backfills...

Originally Posted by pilotgolfer

I thought the backfills would have gone deeper on 777 DCA...missed it by a little. Now if someone could decipher the BAT Bid that came out...I'd love to hear that explanation. The explanation that came out in the bid was confusing.

And BTW, did you notice two or three guys got awarded 76T in the vacancy bid??

Originally Posted by ugleeual

I don't get the 76T awards… unless there is a loophole that allows them to backfill movements (like mine) to keep the min staffing up. I was going to wait to bid the 777 in the Spring but after seeing the March outlook the flying was grim (CDG and AMS)… figured reserve on 777 would be better option! My guess is that there will be a couple other big bids in the next 6 months… one in Fall and one in Spring. Have you seen the flying on 756 out of DCA? Unless your in the top 20% you'll be doing a lot of 757 flights to Ireland and UK… no thanks!

Originally Posted by El Guapo

I can't believe they let 27 SFO 777 FO's bid off without backfillling any.

Originally Posted by ugleeual

makes you wonder what is in store long term for 777 base at SFO...

Originally Posted by CALFO

You need to look at the big picture. We have 13 787 deliveries in less than twelve month. The next 8 are initially (temporarily) going to IAH. On paper, IAH has a lot of 787 pilots. In reality, many are 737 Captains that need to be trained. I doubt the company can train them, plus additional displacements, in time to cover the new IAH flying. Reason being, the system can't afford to lose that many 737 captains overnight. New capt's in other bases must be trained first. So, there will be a lag in training the Iah 787 fo's. The slack will be picked up by SFO and lax. Notice that they are only asking for 5 new 787 IAh Capts on this bid. IAH can't cover the flying.

Why not just open more vacancies in IAh? Because, long term, they don't plan to run that many 787 routes out of Iah. What you will see is the staffing adjust to the amount of displaced 737 Captains in IAH. Figure another 40 go to 787 FO. Now you have enough crews in Iah to cover an additional 3 routes over what is there today. So, dh SFO crews to IAH and/or create W trips and have them cover the temporary staffing issue. Sometime next year they will open up additional flying in SFO and reduce some of the flying in IAH. When their happens they will not have surplus crews in IAH and SFO will have the staffing to handle the additional flying.