Good catch on the 6 bid periods. I hadn't considered a hesitantly to upgrade due to the ETOPS lock. Good point. Might re-shuffle my own bid with that in mind.

Realistically, I try and imagine how big they really want to be. The number I have heard floating around was around 12,000 pilots. But there's never a time frame attached to it. I could see us getting back to 10,000 pilots over the next 3 or 4 years. So around 2.5% per year growth maybe?

Then I look at where upgrades were before Covid, and where I think they are going. As Hoover said there are ~ 1000 copilots senior to the most junior Captain who were bypassing for whatever reason. I'm guessing that a large number of that thousand just got religion and changed their bid. Maybe they aren't all willing to do OAK ETOPS, but might have cast a larger net. So I'm thinking that instead of upgrade realistically happening at around 60%, then maybe it's closer to 55%.

So Eeyore thinks it's still going to be 2024-2025 at the earliest for me. Safely past the 10 year mark when someone will owe me some Texas bbq and a couple adult beverages.


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