PSA has 106 airplanes and 1070 pilots on the seniority list. Total scheduled 900 deliveries equals 115 aircraft end of 2016 requiring about 1150 pilots, resulting in a net gain of 80 pilots over 8 months or 10 pilots per month.
Additional attrition will need to be replaced. Early summer AA classes will be all furlough recall and not required to take any PSA flows. Assuming AA starts OTS classes in August and that adds 5/mo Aug-Dec for a total of 25 pilots. Attrition outside the flow is a guestimate but I’ll guess we continue with the previous year’s monthly average of 5 pilots per month.
End result 2016 of 25 more pilots leaving for flow to AA, 40 more leaving for other carriers, and we have a total hiring requirement of 145 pilots by the end of 2016 or 17 per month. If the $10000 bonus for PSA new hires (plus $5000 for previous 121 pilots) can create enough hiring for 17/month we will not have any leverage to force contractual improvements. If we cannot hire enough we may see contractual gains or management may decide to delay 900 deliveries and/or park 200s.