Originally Posted by
Regularguy
I did not read all the other guesses, so if I'm repeating anyone sorry.
If history is close if you are in the bottom 45% spend the next couple of months preparing financially.
However, it is very likely 30% of all the big 4 will be furloughed. Hope not.
At UAL that would mean somewhere near 3,500 pilots. It will not happen overnight (of course it actually could with all the surprises this crisis has given us) but over probably 6 - 8 months and during that time be evaluated a few times.
Here's what 3500 pilots looks like:
The earliest that 3500th pilot hits the street is next Fall, company plans on having him/her gone for 18 months, brings them back and trains them, that 3500th person is the junior pilot on property Summer of 2023. You have positioned your airline to be AT MOST 2/3 of its original size. You now have an 8300 pilot group 3 summers from now. Most are saying 2-3 year recovery, so you are telling me management is going to set themselves up to be 2/3 of its current size in over 3 years from now? It's not going to happen, you can doom and gloom all you want.
We have been making billions and billions the past several years, enough to **** away billions and billions and still have billions left over, at 82% load factors. We don't need to get back to 82% to break even. They aren't going to cut off their leg to stop their toe from bleeding.