No... they do need pilots for growth. Apparently, they don’t need ALL pilots for that growth. Even in times of need, there appear to be standards.

There must be more to the story. Usually is.

Growth aircraft next year means that shrinking of the seniority list should stop pretty abruptly. It took a while to right size the seniority list for fewer fleets operated while utilizing more efficient pilot schedules deployed by CBA 2015/2018.

I mean they could have done it the hard way and pulled the bandaid off by furloughing immediately down to that number immediately and then conducting recalls as needed.

That’s what the airlines do.

Instead, NJA management opted for a more controlled reorganization in the face of strong CBA language preventing downgrades and a most certain very negative pilot sentiment that would have turned the corporate culture into a toxic brew not seen since Doug Parker’s “American Airlines Group” where he combined the seniority lists of 4 airlines but failed to address the people issues.

The problem is, NetJets can never afford to have that bad of a culture amongst employees. They tried it with Hansel and it was a resounding failure.

That failure was noted and corrected beginning with his immediate departure from aviation.

So how much of a seniority list increase in numbers will it take you to say we’ve turned the corner?

50? 100? 200?

Personally, I think that hiring pilot numbers is great but I’d rather have existing pilots on the seniority list making all they want until we hire more above what’s needed to support current and controlled growth operations.

Between growth and retirements in the coming years, they’ll be plenty of hiring.