Not to be a downer, but I doubt they'll hire this year.

Back in April or May management announced a planned 4% capacity pulldown for the 3rd/4th quarter compared to last year. That's more than enough to absorb the 164 guys that are retiring during the rest of the year. My bet is that they won't hire until fall 2012 unless next summer's block hours are planned way up. If the economy doesn't puke and there aren't any legislative/ownership/cabotage surprises, they'll need to hire every year after that as age 65 kicks in.