Originally Posted by Excargodog

Will it be the summer of the Captain Crunch?


It's been 18 months or so now since the $17.5K hiring bonus. That bonus wasn't out of the goodness of management's heart (unfortunately) it's because we weren't filling classes. And when we did start filling classes it seemed like everyone in the whole damn world was filling 175 classes and sim and instructor availability became an issue. So the throughput to getting those newbie's on the line got somewhat lengthened even though we eventually did fill all those classes.

In reaction to last summer's FO shortage, management kicked around the idea of CQFOs, slowed upgrades, and cancelled or deferred vacations and we made it through, not without a little angst. But fast forward another year, and we'll be facing summer flying again.

Now FOs ought not to be a problem, we are pretty much caught up, but the vast majority of our attrition is captains moving on. The "new" guys hired at the start of the summer of 2018 probably took three months or so to go through their initial training, meaning they have been on the line now for maybe seven months.

At 75 hours a month, they ought to have 600 hours or so, probably not much more than that since they will have pulled a month of reserve or so. Now the guys who were hired in the previous nine months after the bonus have more, in fact some ought to have about a thousand hours, but for some of them (and I have no idea just how many) that won't be enough because they came on board with 1500 TT or less and 25 hours of ME and are still not at company minima for upgrade in terms of either ME time or TT.

It looks to me like the FO crunch of last year stands a pretty good chance of becoming a captain crunch this year.

Anyone for crib pay?