This is the curious thing. Early on in this hiring wave, when I was in indoc a question was asked of one of the VPs about why we had only announced hiring for 500ish (I can't even remember the number now) when Delta/UAL were looking at 800-1000 publicly. The VP was quick to say that "this management group" was verrrry concerned about wall street, and any over-speculation on hiring would have a negative affect on stock/expectations/etc, and that they would rather hire more than the announced total than less, for those reasons.

Now we have the same management team saying anywhere from 700-800 next year with 750+ a year pretty much indefinitely. Yes, this is with the SLI, PBS and other staff shrinking synergies quickly approaching. Yesterday in the crew news, Parker/Isom were also complaining about the "glut" of wide body orders and adding overcapacity (the 787 having more seats than the 767), but also saying "don't worry, we're going to take them, we HAVE to take them."

Who the "H.E. double hockey sticks" knows...