Originally Posted by disenchantMINT

I have no dog in the fight, but just a couple points of correction:

The LGB/LAX base is not shrinking. In the quarterly system bid that just closed out, it grew by 9.2% for FOs and 6.3% for captains. It is also available to new hires (for the time being), unlike JB's senior base of MCO. Not saying that growth will be sustained, but it is not shrinking and is unlikely to do so.

As far as upgrade time, this bid brought it down to 2 years 2 months. Being a three-fleet airline and having smaller jets flown by seniority list pilots should keep that figure low for the foreseeable future.