Originally Posted by
more windshear
I'm not really that surprised, although I was expecting the numbers to be higher than 17 pilots, 8 of which are FO's. If you consider the ratio of pilots to airplanes, we are pretty fat on pilots, in my opinion. With 943 pilots on property (per APC) along with 56 planes, that works out to be about 17 pilots per airplane. Virgin America has 618 pilots to 53 planes which is about 12 pilots per plane. JetBlue, 2691 to 193 is about 14 per plane. SWA, 6,830 to 573 is roughly 12 per plane. So in those examples I can see how they think we are a little fat on pilots. I realize that we have the highest utilization and such but we are still a little fat on crews.
Our CBA is quite different than any of the other airlines you listed. Besides high fleet utilization, our work rules necessitate a fatter staffing model. Perhaps we are slightly overstaffed, but management has no choice but to stack up on pilots due to the uneven delivery schedule later in the year. Our training capacity would not be able to provide a glut of pilots later in the year. These voluntary leaves are just management trying to save a few pennies short term. I imagine it may go senior. After all, how often can you take a summer month off?