Originally Posted by
cruiseclimb
With the high demand for pilots placed on TSA this year, and the additional flying, will the TSA group be forced into flying more than they want to over the summer? I've heard rumors of vacations being canceled and pilots expected to fly the max.. Any truth?
While I'm sure that is an option, we are currently staffed well enough to pick up other airlines' flying with plenty of people in the pipeline going through or awaiting IOE. In IAD alone, there were 34 hard lines, 3 buildups and 24 reserve lines. Last I heard, the first Feb class was just starting IOE and there were 75 pilots in the pipeline as of April 1st with most class sizes around 14(2 per month). So, if we didn't hire at all starting right now(assuming another class of 20 started already) we are staffed for another almost 10 airplanes. Add 20-30 captains in the training pipeline back to the list combined with still being a little fat on FOs and you might be able to squeeze out one or two more airplanes. That alone should get us through the summer.