Originally Posted by
Viking busdvr
That's not what the January Crew Resources Monthly Update says. It states that only 65 Captain positions will be open to bid on. All 65 positions will be on the A350. This would be semi-good news as you might think the waterfall effect on the Captains side would create some additional capt slots, but the update also said that they do not intend to backfill any of the vacated positions. the remaining 680 openings will be on the F/O side (40 A350 and 200 ERF/Os. the rest are narrow body positions). If the statement that there will be no backfilling of vacated positions weren't bad enough, the update also states that this AE will likely take us through the Summer of '18.
Are we now planning to fly captain-less narrow-body aircraft??
I wouldn’t worry too much, they were commenting on the “Sep/Oct”/“Fall AE” as late as September and it never happened.
The update last month claimed we would return to “more frequent” AE’s.
However, if we’re becoming a one-bid-a-year airline a lot of guys are going to have to re-evaluate their preferences especially since freezes may effectively last a lot longer than advertised.