Originally Posted by
JamesBond
Interesting goings on right now. If any of ya'll read other airlines threads, you will see that practically everybody is slowing if not outright stopping hiring.
Draw whatever conclusions you will, but there might be an indicator in there somewhere.
United has run 120 new hires in the last 6 weeks and added an additional new hire class to August yesterday.
DL has done its hiring now y’all are in displacement phase. United went through it with the 757 and 747 phase out and now DL is going through it with 747 and MD80 phase out. The displacements never go where the company wants them too and the training churn is tremendous. The efficiencies that are gained through eliminating a fleet are not negligible especially when the fleet is as big as DLs MD fleet. I would bet the efficiencies gained in staffing will cover close to a years worth of retirements and upgrades. Just a few hundred 747 pilots shut United down for 6 months and caused the WB bids to dry up for close to a year. United is just now starting to get back into hiring and upgrading.