I don't believe it's 6k new apps. I think it's a pull of 6k apps from the existing pool. A lot of this is educated conjecture, but based on what I've heard from the hiring desk folks, I believe the company has two screening processes:

- Type A (my name, not theirs) is a relatively quantitative approach - a pull of all applicants who meet certain objective requirements - hours, degrees, gpa, mil service, whatever. This is probably done by AirlineApps automation and is relatively low cost per app, maybe even a flat rate per data pull.

- Type B is a more in-depth and qualitative assessment/scoring of a given application. This is done by a "third party" (meaning not DAL and not the applicant), but I don't know if that third party is AirlineApps. This is where apps are "scored" for interview consideration and placed in "Tiers" (Hiring desk's term). The cost for this would be much higher per application.

DAL is extremely interested in cost efficiencies. My belief is that DAL uses "Type A" screening, as well as career fair contacts and DAL pilot recommendations to select batches of applicants for "Type B" screening.

My suspicion is that AK recently adjusted his "Type A" triggers, creating a much larger pool of applications to consider. That alone could explain the reported flood of 6k more applications.

With the significant increase in hiring and thus interviews, I would expect AK also must be at least looking deeper into the Tier structure, and may even be forced to adjusted those Tier settings.