Originally Posted by
cards5
"Right now, we are staffed properly for the rest of the year and the flying we expect to see at the beginning of next year."
The way I interpreted this, it was meant to be a reassuring comment - i.e. we are NOT overstaffed.
Originally Posted by
cards5
When do we find out about staffing needed for next summer? Any chance we may need to hire?
Network is supposed to have the tentative block hour plan for summer 2012 out sometime this fall. I'm guessing we'll know more about if there will be hirring to staff for the summer 2012 peak when they release the October/November AE. If we keep the block hours close to where they were this summer, I'm guessing we could probably squeak by without hirring - though I would imagine it would be yet another "interesting summer." But if network were to come to crew resources late spring with a request for more summer block hours they may have to say "unable."
SD also made the comment that the 5% capacity reduction in the fall only represented about a 0.5% reduction in block hours.