Originally Posted by
89Pistons
Of course these positions needed to be filled somehow. 30 Captains and no first officers? That means they either expect to staff the FO's by -400 folks bumping to the 777 right seat OR forcing folks there by bumping SFO 787.
Another option: manpower planning can leave the max/min numbers stable for other BES categories and let "unfilled vacancies" naturally percolate throughout the ranks and then tweak things later once they see how all the bumps play out.
In theory, they could staff the entire airline with only widebody CA vacancies during periods of very modest overall growth (like this year).