Originally Posted by
Globemaster2827
The rumor that I'm hearing from a 767 Instructor is that he's seeing 737 loads out on the line. He is speculating that this is already happening to a certain degree. My bet is that they up hiring on the 767 and if they can't staff it with new hires then they'll upgrade 747 FOs and send new hires to the 747... We're already seeing an abnormal percentage of 767 Captains with respect to the overall number of 767 Pilots. I believe the percentage is low 60s according to JS's Giant Comms products. That'll increase attrition, BUT it'll take a few years to have that affect.
They've got a million outs and most of those outs don't involve paying us anytime soon.
There is no doubt, IMO, that they are overstaffing with 767 CA. My opinion is that they are doing this so they can try to steal the next round of airplanes that the big customer wants to place. Pretty easy sell if you ask me... they would already have the CAs and only need to hire the FOs to backfill, vs another airline that would have to train 2 positions (the upgrade and the new hire). Moreover the 17% discount at which the 767 gets paid under the current garbage CBA makes it pretty cheap/easy for them to justify positioning themselves to potentially snap up the next round of aircraft after the last one is delivered/put into operation later this year.