Originally Posted by Gunfighter

I'll take a stab at this and say 1,200 more pilots. The company was willfully negligent when they went against Flight Ops recommendations and delayed hiring for a year. Many claim this was done to hit an earnings target they didn't want weighted down by the costs associated with hiring and training.

We often accuse the executives of making short sighted decisions for quarterly numbers and refuse to consider they are looking several moves ahead. It is possible they have intentionally created an environment where they can claim they need scope relief on JVs in order to keep the airline from collapsing. Be ready, that argument is coming sooner than you think.