Originally Posted by
GoCats67
How many of that 8000 is Age 65 retirements and how many are "planned" growth????
I don't think you are having 900 retire a year for the next 9 years??
I am somewhat confident in retirements happening (Age 65 change?)
I am never confident in "planned" growth!
Ok the number of pilots represents the actual size of operation flown by UAL, not the hireling RJ outsourcing airplanes.
Historically the size of operation that requires about 12K+ pilots becomes a huge moving object that when the winds of change come about the losses mount very rapidly. Another analogy is when a small rudder attempt to turn a big ship (Titanic) and it just won't change course quick enough.
Of course history is never a perfect predictor of the future, but we also tend to repeat the same mistakes regardless of our past.
How many pilots have we added since the merge?
Mainline fleet:
2010 - 710 pilots 9878 13.9 per airplane
2011 - 701 pilots 9929 14 per airplane
2012 - 702 pilots 10187 14.5 per airplane
2013 - 693 pilots 10553 15 per airplane
2014 - 691 pilots 10612 15.6 per airplane
2015 - 715 pilots 11204 15.7 per airplane
2016 - 737 pilots 11454 15.5 per airplane - Kirby took charge this year
2017 - 744 pilots 11494 15.4 per airplane
2018 - 770 pilots 11742 15.2 per airplane
UAL has 60 more airplanes since the merge and added 1864 pilots. That's 31 additional pilots per additional airplane since the merge.
Yes stats can be twisted and lie to us, but the efficiency of a large operation seems to begin to decrease at a more rapid rate.
And since I'm not in charge of anything beyond my scope as a pilot all I can do is point out what I'm sure the World HQ masters already know.
Now you can read the numbers any way you want.
All info from UALCAL Hlds 10K reports.
What I see this management wanting is to keep mainline about the same size and expand the outsourcing in every way possible. Thus they expand UAL's market without adding capital expenses to the balance sheet.