Originally Posted by
DaMnad
Andy,
Everything you said is correct, but, UAL manning is based on the HEAVY flying summer months, during the slow months we are fat. UAL is NOT ALLOWING extensions for long term LOA's or anything else that will cut into the manning numbers. We are starting to see unfilled bids and the large shortage in JFK of 756 f/o's and systemwide 320 Capt/f/o's is going to require some fixing. With retirements looming something will need to be done relatively soon and recalling to UAL will hurt the CAL manning so I don't expect anything prior to the end of the summer, but after the summer I think things might change rapidly.
True, all airlines fly more block hours in the summertime. That's why I did an apples to apples comparison of crewmember utilization rates (dec 2010 vs Dec 2011). The raw numbers show a 2 1/2 block hour flying decrease per pilot. Was United short staffed last summer? There weren't a significant number of JRM/SRM events last summer compared to historical norms ... I pulled up the oldest SSC report, Feb 2009, and it showed every month in 2007 in excess of 100 JRM/SRM events.
We'll see what happens but from looking purely at the numbers, I'm not seeing anything close to a pilot shortage at LUAL.