MEC broadcast yesterday indicated they are not aware of any plans for shutdown of C5, but it's also clear the company isn't telling them everything. Some of that may be legitimate in that UA isn't telling management the entire story and hence they're in the dark as much as we are but management keeping its pilot group in the dark is not without precedent here and elsewhere.
The union said they are encouraged by the commitment to training. If management did not think we would be around long they wouldn't be spending money keeping everyone current and also right-seat training captains to deal with the possibility that they remain in operation but furlough so many people (with FOs generally being at the bottom half of the seniority list) that they can still fly with many / most of the current FOs gone.
I would tend to believe that UAL intends to reduce UAX to a single E145 operator as another poster has suggested, much like GoJet is the 550 operator. That way they can keep the whipsaw going and yet not discard an entire class of assets that still do serve a function in the current, if not the long term future of the UAX network. I would also tend to believe that XJT is worse off than C5 because we're smaller, we have a generally young (and cheap) pilot group, and hence we are a lower-cost operation. But in a fee-for-departure world that may not make much difference. One thing is pretty clear at this point: assuming E145 operations don't cease altogether, they will be a diminishing percentage of UAX operations over the next few years because customers hate the E145 and UAL will never lower fares to compete with the likes of Spirit whose customers would hop on a Dash if it meant getting somewhere for less. That means C5 will be shrinking over time and that does not bode well for advancement here.
When I came back into this industry I did not expect much, and I still don't. I considered sticking around at C5 beyond upgrade, becoming a check airman, etc. But now that upgrades are postponed and management is clearly determined to screw FOs like me currently receiving Dash captain pay (which is essentially the same as Republic 2nd year FO pay, so nothing to write home about in any case) by letting LOA 8 expire, I'll need to GTFO ASAP. Even if no one looks at them for the foreseeable future, my apps are going out.