Originally Posted by sailingfun

They can sustain almost 1000 a year. When we had much less sim capacity they were doing 100 a month for several months. If they lack sims then they simply contract out for them. They will not front load the retirements much. There is however another factor. Once we enter a sustained hiring mode it keeps a bunch of pilots off the line. Generally its a 5 to 7 percent factor. That means that once sustained hiring starts they have to staff the airline for the pilots in school. Thats 500 to 700 jobs. Its also why furloughs almost always follow after a hiring cycle. Your instantly surplus 5 to 7 percent of your pilots even if you keep the exact same block hours.
Unless there is a huge drop on overall system block hours we will hire by next fall. They have to in order to staff the block hours moving from DCI to the mainline. The retirements start up shortly after. If we don't hire late this fall I would expect classes starting next August and continuing on a sustained pace for many years.
That is of course if the economy gets better, Delta executes its business plan ect......