here are some excerpts from the most recent ALPA System Schedule Committee update:
"As we mentioned last month, Summer 2016 manpower plan is locked into place, Network
Planning (Marketing) is setting its sights on Summer 2017 and beyond.
Here are the new aircraft arrivals that are part of future plans:
14 777-300ERs arriving during the 7 months from this December to June 2017.
2 787-9s arriving this July.
2 787-9s arriving in the beginning of 2017.
1 787-9 at the end of the year (2017) that is part of the additional 5 that were
announced recently as 747 replacements.
15 737-800/900ERs and used 319s thru the end of this year.
The remaining planned used 319s and the start of the 737-700s arriving in second half
of 2017.
Of 22 747-400s in the fleet, only 17 to 19 have been actively in scheduled route planning (in
service), with the remaining aircraft in maintenance, spares or available for charter. Of these
747-400s 2 are planned to be removed from the fleet in 2016, 8 in 2017 and the remaining
aircraft by October 2018"
"Vacancy bids and training will also be driven by the large number of narrow-body aircraft
arriving. The plans on which fleet and bases they will go to is also still in flux. As we mentioned
last month, the company is focusing the 320 on SFO, DEN, IAH and ORD with 80% of the
flying this summer in and out of those locations. They were considering much higher numbers
for 2017 but backed off that plan. We feel it is important for the 320 categories in EWR, DCA
and LAX to be aware the company stated that a large number of the planned flying for the
foreseeable future will be in the co-terminals, LGA, DCA, BWI and SNA, and if this will have an
effect on your QWL you may want to make changes with the many bid opportunities coming.
The SSC will report more detailed information as it becomes available."
Hopefully this helps give a picture of where things are at currently and going to be headed based on today's plan.
Additionally on the Company internal website they have had updates on Network Planning. In one of those videos with the head Network Planning Senior VP, he says we are planning to grow Mainline by 30% in the next 5 years. A large portion of this is the process we are going through of upguaging 50 seat routes to 70 seaters, and then upguaging the 70 seat routes to Mainline. You can see from the ALPA comms above that we have a significant number of narrowbodies being added to the fleet every month that will be used to fly these reclaimed routes. The flying is going to start looking more like pre 9/11 with layovers in MSN, BNA, MEM and the like returning to the narrowbody fleets. Additionally, they have replaced some of the 757 Europe flights with 767s, which frees up some 757s for domestic flying as well. Finally, with all the widebodies that are coming into the fleet they are converting more of the original "A" model 777s to a 2 class domestic configuration and will use those on the top end of this process of upguaging domestic aircraft size, so we will be seeing more domestic Hub to Hub flying on the 777.
The good news out of all of this is that you should be able to get back to a midwest hub fairly quickly on whichever fleet you get in new hire. I would personally think that ORD is going to be your first landing spot as a large portion of this 50 seater replacement process is targeted for ORD as its starting point.