I don’t think a lot of people fully understand how screwed up base staffing was/is. We had 60 IAH 787 FOs that we’re sitting home not flying getting paid for over a year, we now have a DCA 777 base where the G line is 50%. Every time a pilot leaves CLE they are not replaced. We eliminated an entire fleet in the 747 that gets rid of extra RSV and drives efficiency. There are more examples.......

You also have Zin making 350K as a 737 CA, furloughs working as much as they can to make back lost 401K time, senior pilots flying like crazy to make back pensions and pilots “making hay while the sun is shining”. That’s their choice but it certainly makes for an efficient company.

Also we are covering retirements. Don’t forget about all the furloughs still coming back (1200+) and all the Military pilots coming back. I think I read that last year over 100 pilots came back from extended leaves.

It’s so much more than new hire numbers at play here. The proof is there just go look at the quarterly reports about growth, 3-4%, look at the beating our stock has taken due to growing faster than DL, AA, SW. somehow we are not cancellling flights due to lack of Crew so that tells me that United is getting very good efficiency out of its crews.