Originally Posted by
Hueypilot
I don't particular try to predict things too much or try to get into the heads of management, but I've been actively wondering what our HR Department's strategy is going ahead.
We've all heard about this "pilot shortage", and while I don't think it'll be dire straits for the majors, unless something happens to hurt or shrink the economy, I think the majors will be facing competition from each other to hire good candidates in the next 4-5 years.
I think AA's management is pretty good as far as running day-to-day operations. They are numbers people and when it comes to daily ops, they can run a decent airline. But they haven't ever shown much ability to forecast their needs, and things like fuel hedging only worked in their favor because of luck, primarily.
Delta's management has always seemed to be more focused on the future (3-5 years out), and their hiring trends seem to reflect this. I think they are losing around 170ish pilots this year due to retirements, yet they are hiring over 1,000 this year and will probably continue to hire in large numbers (600-700) over the next few years. Even UA is hiring about as many as we are, possibly more. WN, which doesn't have nearly the amount of attrition, is hiring a healthy number of people each year as well. This year, AA is losing nearly 300 combined but I believe they said we're only bringing about 500-600 aboard, including flows.
Delta appears to be attempting to get ahead of the bow wave when the hiring really starts to kick off in a few years. AA will be reliant on a flow from their regionals, which is probably not the best source to tie yourself too considering the regionals will probably face even more severe shortages than the mainline.
Personally, I wonder why we (AA) aren't trying to do the same and get ahead of the curve. I think around 2020, it's possible that DAL will be fairly healthy staffing-wise, and we may be short. One possible silver lining is being short on staff could help give us leverage in the next contract talks.
Thoughts?
I think the reason we are more conservative on the hiring numbers is we are still in the transition phase of melding these two operations together and its challenges that go along with this process. DL and UA are more streamlined (for now) to handle the numbers they are forecasting. Some of these challenges include training backup, PBS, flows/recalls and managing these, and right sizing the airline's staffing which may mean more or less crews. We will inevitably need lots of pilots but to hire massive amounts isnt part of the short term plan at this point in the merger.