Originally Posted by
thump
He's making a prediction of upgrade times for a new hire starting today.
Current upgrade time is about 6-7 years. Keep in mind that we have almost zero people hired from 4/08 to 4/10. For a list of about 2300 pilots, we only have 53 pilots on the seniority list from 4/08 to 4/11 (i.e. 53 pilots for 3 years on the seniority list). Historically, we lose about 30 guys a month or 360 pilots a year. Upgrade times will be dropping as soon as they start getting past the 4/08 hires, which should be this year. Even if you take into account the guys coming off the Q400.
Opinions are like *********s, everyone's got one, but I'm just not seeing 7-10 year upgrades happening at this point. I don't think we will ever get back to 2 year upgrades, but at current attrition rates, with no growth, we should settle into an average of 4-year upgrade, assuming no increased attrition and assuming 1 in 4 guys leaving is an FO, which is a reasonable assumption IMHO once the rush to places like TSA/PSA finishes.
Your 30/month number is an inaccurate. I'm a very senior FO and there the people senior to me that leave every month is about half that number. Last month is was seven.
Seven.
Now, that being said, I think that your 4 year number is not too far off, but I think that it's gonna be closer to five years.