I think we will hire agresively regardless. IMO the theoretical differential would likely be 100-200 a year max, and probably a bit lower anyway. Although its possible we could totally drop the ball. But to those people hoping to get a class date, that's certainlly a big deal. The biggest thing to watch out for, by far, is any attempt to redefine how block time is calculated.

That would effectively shave 5-10 minutes off of every single flight in the system. I'll let one of the Excel gurus plug and play those numbers but I'd suspect just that would be a couple hundred pilots worth. We could easily be hoodwinked by it and think we are getting more time/a raise by inking the waters with "door pay" but bottom line this will cost lots of jobs if we're dumb enough to fall for it.

Pay banding may or may not have much of an effect in reducing training churn; it depends on how its presented (and assuming we ratified it). Longer freezes would drive lower staffing needs for sure though. Larger "RJ's" and/or monitizing the AF/KLM scope grievance (assuming we push it that far) and a sudden change of heart from the Delta VP of West Coast Pilot Hiring (aka the Alaska CEO) could combine to effect a lot more than just a couple hundred pilots though.

My guess is we will see an outright assault on "productivity" that would drive the need for 500 or so less pilots but we will "compromise" and only give up a couple hundred or slightly less. I hope I'm wrong and we hold the line on everything when it comes to manning, as well as fix a few things that would drive the need for more manning (better vacation credit, scope recapture at ALL levels, increased long call, etc).