Originally Posted by
thump
That's my prediction, assuming no fleet growth.
We have about 2300 pilots and lose about 30 guys per month on average. Most junior CA is about 1100 from the bottom. That's about 3 years to get to that number on the list. Now if you assume that 1 in 4 guys leaving is an FO, that number gets longer to about 4 years. And keep in mind this is with a stagnant fleet size. There are approximately 19 Q400s on their way out the door, which will be offset by 64 deliveries in the next two years (57 UAL and 7 DL). Plus it it reasonable to assume that attrition will pickup with majors hiring so many.
While it's just my personal opinion, assuming they can get new hires in the door (new TA?), upgrade times should drop to no more than 2-3 years in the future.
Full disclosure: I'm an 8-year FO that is struggling to hold the 170 for upgrade.....
I agree with everything you have said except for the fleet numbers. Last I've read we are only getting 55 United birds (50 in the original announcement plus 5 more that were recently signed). The announcement for the Delta planes said the we're going to be sourced internally which I took to mean we were taking them off of other flying we have. So by my count we have 55 new planes over the next 2 years while we are parking 28 Q400s (9 of which are already gone). This means 27 airframes worth of growth. If you could point me towards an announcement I may have missed that states otherwise I would greatly appreciate it.