Originally Posted by
TexasFlight
My uninformed opinion is we pushed those classes back to clear space for the impending MAX training. FAA has said it expects certification before the middle of the year and it sounds like SWA wants to train everybody at once over the course of a couple months, as opposed to a metered base by base training cycle. The purchase of 3 additional MAX sims supports that. Sucks big time for folks who have class dates and interviews because we will no doubt lose some excellent people, but this saga REALLY needs to come to an end and if it takes a brute force approach to accomplish that then so be it. Good luck to all.
I would say bad logic more than uninformed. The MAX training will have to be done in the MAX sims. There's another 15 NG sims that can handle the rest of the training. It's more about avoiding paying pilots to sit around and do nothing--even during the busiest part of the year (summer). Don't need as many pilots after August. No MAX until August or later--no need for more pilots.