Originally Posted by
echelon
The only thing I can think of is potential for more trading flexibility - the more pilots on the airplane, the more likely it is to find someone to trade trips with, split trips, modify pairings, etc. So in that sense it would make sense to have 3000 pilots on one airplane instead of 1000 pilots on the Bus and 2000 on the Boeing. At least, that would be the case at an airline with 21st century scheduling rules instead of the contract we currently have that allows scheduling to deny absolutely everything.
Hopefully someone can come along and tell me why this last bit of optimism I have about working here in the future is misguided.
That is a valid point. The flip side is that we end up with fewer pilots on the list because fewer are in training for upgrade and equipment swaps at any one time. I seem to remember hearing that something like 10% of delta pilots are in the school house at any one time becuase all of their different fleet types generate a ton of training as everyone bids around. That 10% number is pulled from a very deep place in my memory, and may be way off, but it illustrates a point. As QOL goes, trading flexibilty probably outweighs this....if we had any.