A couple things come to mind. The first is a mind shift in how reserves are used. The company has finally come around to the way of thinking where they don’t burn ALL the reserves a day prior and resort to massive reroutes and JA’s to solve each inevitable crisis during the busy periods. They’ve increased manning accordingly.

Another issue is our training requirements have almost doubled from the past few years and we haven’t even started etops training yet. Several pilots I fly with have mentioned that they cut back their flying with the latest contract. Also, the company can see future bookings so they have an early look at demand.

I don’t think it’s 1 big thing but several smaller factors combined. With a 9500 pilot group even small percentage increases can add up to big hiring numbers.