Originally Posted by Zoomie

That's why the "snapshot" is just an "estimate" of where you would be. When the actual bid comes out, no one will be above 100% in base since the result will have the actual as the denominator. In the snapshot, the min number is the denominator. However, you won't ever be able to bid "into" a base that is showing over 100% staffing unless there are enough pilots that bid out of that base during the vacancy to bring the base to 100% - 1 pilot or more, thus creating the vacancy.

If you notice all of the bases with 100% plus are "overstaffed to the max" number on the bid sheet. The company is trying to minimize staffing in those bases through attrition (movement or retirements).

The end game here has us with only 9616 pilots per this bid. Right now it's less expensive to overstaff rather than do a displacement bid. Also, we don't have the means to do all the training required for new hires and displacements simultaneously.

Although we're "hiring" off the street right now, take a look at the min numbers on these last 2 vacancy bids. A better term would be "optimum" instead of "min" in that column.

If you notice, a base that is growing like 787 LAX or ORD747 will always have max and min equal. That's because it's growing. Those bases where the "actual" and "max" are equal, means that base is set to shrink because the company can fill the schedule with the min pilots according to their manpower model.

We're just playing musical chairs at the moment. All these retirements we thought were going to move up in reality will just amount to stagnation since many of the retirement positions are currently being shrunk through attrition.