blakman7

+1 for BCDurbin

Who in the hell announces a base 2 years before its due to open? It's like dangling a twinkie in front of Chris Griffin.

aupilot

Out of curiosity, as a former 737 pilot for AirTran, what is happening to the 737 guys in Atlanta if there are no plans for a 737 domicile?

Marvin

It depends.

If one is a senior 737 CA in ATL, then that individual can choose to bid over to SWA as an FO or stay in ATL as a CA or FO on the 717. IN addition, the more senior 737 CAs can keep their seat in ATL until the last few airplanes go through conversion, so they can potentially keep their seat for a couple years. On the SWA side, they will go wherever their seniority will hold for a base. If they choose 717 CA, they may be able to stay in ATL for a long time.

737 FOs will mostly be 717 FOs, although some will be able to get 737 FO on the SWA side and a few may be able to upgrade to 717 CA on the ATN side.

Some folks are bidding the 717 to try to stay in ATL or to try to retain a CA seat on the SWA side after 2015.

Clear as mud? :-)

Hugo Stiglitz

Basically, it went down like this:

If you had a seniority number of 784 (out of 1734 total pilots on the AirTran side) or senior you could of held ATL or TPA 717 CA, 510 total positions (TPA or ATL to be determined at a later date).

If you had a seniority number of 1363 or senior you could have held SWA 737FO and a base in the SWA system to be bid on when you are in training, 707 total positions.

If you were junior to number 1363 you had no choice but to hold the B717 FO ATL or TPA, 517 positions.

There were people senior to 1363 who voluntarily bid 717 FO, and there were people who were senior to to number 784 who bid SWA 737 FO or 717 FO(not very many if any at all for the 717 FO).

The hire dates for the above seniority levels is:

784 = 7/2004
1363 = 4/2007