The last year (since NY/BOS bus captain has become so senior) has all been post AIP bids with a significant change in the dynamic...namely work rules (ADG making formerly bad 10-11 hour 3 days go away making junior bus trips more palatable) and the 90% pay differential going away. Obviously there’s been a flood of senior NY/BOS 190 guys switching over (along with super senior 5 sandwich FOs finally upgrading) temporarily making the seniority required to get bus captain higher than historical numbers in those 2 bases. There have also been relatively few 320 CA vacancies in these bases over the last year, making it even worse.

If JB is really hiring 450 this year and 500 next year, that’s gotta equal about 400 bus captain vacancies over 2019/2020 (and we haven’t seen much yet for this year), most of which will be in JFK/BOS/FLL. I think the senior 190 churn will finish in the next year or so and the numbers will go back down to a more normalized level. That said, my estimate was 3-5 more years for a guy hired 3 years ago, so 6-8 total, which isn’t that far off your 8-10 year estimate. All depends on how much hiring ends up happening and how much of it goes to BOS...but since JG said BOS will be as big as JFK, I imagine BOS will get a decent amount of that.

If there are 36 A220s and 73 A321NEOs added between now and end of 2023, that is 850 or so CA vacancies that will have to be filled, most of which will be BOS/FLL since JFK is maxed out with slots. Of course that’s assuming all those deliveries happen. And sure some of the 190 CA slots will go away so it isn’t all “new” CA slots, but with the $10 pay differential between the 320 and 220, again I don’t think such a wide gap will remain, in theory lowering the relative 320 CA seniority due to a more equalized seniority distribution compared to what we see today with the 190 shift. At least that’s my prediction.