Originally Posted by RyanP

Good post. Agreed.

It's amazing how people can't see past "current" upgrade and flow times, because they are COMPLETELY irrelevant to what a new hire will experience. When I was hired projections were 3-4 years, went to 10+ With age 65, still had flowbacks, and losing Aircraft plus other problems, then it went back down to as low as 6. We had years without hardly any hiring now since later in 08, which will shorten a newhires timeframe significantly when those big gaps are jumped again, new hires aren't going through the lost decade either and have NEVER seen movement off the top/middle as high as 300-400+ A YEAR!!

Upgrade was 10 years right before my upgrade.. But there was such a gap in hiring over the years (similar to what a new hire will experience) that my upgrade time jumped all the way down to around 6.5yrs just due to hiring gaps and getting here on the FRONT end of an 800 pilot hiring wave, even with the bankruptcy and losing tons of aircraft. The guys on the back end of that hiring wave are the ones suffering more back at around 8yrs again.. That is what happens when you get hired behing 600-700 people in a year period. That is a TON of people to upgrade ahead of you, especially when things start to slow, and what these other upgrade mill carriers will be dealing with shortly. The suckers going there still now just don't realize it yet.

There is NO way for a new hire to have an 8 year upgrade here (barring another major disaster) if we continue to lose 400+ pilots a year due to flow and outside attrition. (Which we are doing. Easily) Even with more shrinkage.. And as the 175's start coming in the shrinkage is coming to a stop. We have only 2030 pilots, almost a couple hundred of them are inactive, working in training center, management, mil leave or on sick leave. Junior CA award today is #1206 out of 2030 pilots. Upgrades stay around 60% on the seniority list. Do the simple math. 2030 - 400+/yr attrition ahead of you leaving. How many years until you hit the 60% mark to upgrade? Even estimating if we shrink more and junior CA goes from current #1206 down to #900 or so in a couple years..

I bet attrition next year is closer to 500 anyway with the amount of hiring everywhere. We have Higher attrition than any other regional on the planet right now. 300ish flowing, handful of retirements, and 180 or so junior CA and FO's to other LCC and Majors is EASILY doable next year, then the always reliable junior FO upgrade chasers that will leave on top of that. That is 25% of our pilots gone in just 1 yr.