Originally Posted by
svergin
ISL was inflated because it included pilots who had retired as placeholders. It also included furloughed pilots and pilots on COLA. The actual number of active pilots was much less than the ISL. We are clearly growing since in addition to a large number of pilots returning from furloughs and LOA we have hired about 2,700 pilots post merger. Also, measuring growth based on who holds the junior Captain spot doesn’t mean anything. The bottom 787 Captains in SFO and LAX haven’t changed since 2015, but there have been hundreds of new Captains in those seats. Also, we’re talking about SFO here, and not everyone wants to live there or commute there, just like everyone didn’t want to commute or move to GUM when we had a super junior guppy Captain there years ago and the bottom Captain didn’t change, but we still had growth.
The Category summary for 18-03 shows that we currently have 2251 pilots on the list that are junior to the junior most pilot included on the ISL. So, 2251 (+ however many were in the December new hire class) new hires since the merger.
Obviously , quite a large number of furlough returns during that timeframe as well. On the ISL, 1570 pilots were listed as Furloughed. On my visit to TK last week I was shown a chart that shows that number is now at 225 remaining, so that translates into almost 1250 pilots that have returned from furlough since the merger was announced.
As far as retirements go, on the ISL there were about 1550 pilots that have turned (or will turn) 65 by the end of this month.
So that nets out to just under 2000 pilots of growth. Prob a couple of hundred early/medical retirements, so call it about 1700ish of net growth since the merger was announced.
The problem is that most of the "growth" in flying recently has not required new pilots, as the company was able to use the benefit of increased efficiency they gained by getting rid of the 747. While all of the flights the whale did are still being flown, from a Manpower perspective, they are being covered dramatically more efficiently. I was one of those 747 guys and at this time two years ago they had only 1 flight a day for the entire ORD domicile, even though in Aug of that year we had 4. So, the ORD aspect of the 747 closing alone was prob like hiring 150 pilots. Prob a similar benefit (though maybe a little less) from the SFO side as well. Obviously the training associated with that and the PI flying days is causing massive issues, but it will be an extreme benefit to the company when it is completed.
Not sure we have the airplanes coming fast enough for immediate growth anyway, but the training issues alone have translated into an inability to grow even if we wanted to. We Probably have the widebodies coming for some growth (4 more 787-9s and 3 more 777-300s by next summer), but I don't think we do on the narrowbody side, since nothing has seem to come from the rumors of the used airbus aircraft that were so prevalent 3-4 months ago. I never heard anything about what happened with those airplanes, but the rumors coupled with the "time to start growing" Manpower Update, sure supported the idea of increased hiring, but that sure hasn't materialized.
Going forward, with the aircraft we are set to receive, especially beginning over the winter of 2018-19, we better be hiring at an impressive rate starting this Fall or we are going to have airplanes sitting around with no pilots by the summer of 2019.