Originally Posted by Andy

Upguaging from 50 to 76 seats eliminates any additional pilots needed. It does, however, increase the number of FAs on a flight from 1 to 2. The increase in FAs alone would MORE than cover a 2% increase in FTEs.

Using the numbers for 50 to 76 seaters, 3 76 seaters have the same number of FTEs as 4 50 seaters. If I wanted to achieve a 2% growth in FTEs, 13 76 seaters replacing 17 50 seaters would accomplish 2% FTE growth. That's a 23.5% loss in pilot FTEs offset by a 53% increase in FA FTEs.

FTEs are worthless for determining pilot growth/shrinkage.