Originally Posted by
RonnyK320
That's a great question. As of now we have almost 2800 pilots. To upgrade we'd have to have over 5000. I don't think we are going to have that many with the current orders. We are a young pilot group, so not too many retirements in the next 10 years. If I were to guess.... About 5-6 year upgrade if you're lucky.
There are guys much smarter than me on here that may have a better answer, hopefully they'll chime in.
Generally speaking, an airline needs more CAs than FOs, to offset CAs having more longevity giving them longer vacations, more likely to be involved in Union activities, more frequent medical absences, more frequent involvement in training, and just from the fact that they are more knowledgeable in how to get soft time and have the seniority to put that knowledge to work.
Additionally, some people simply don’t upgrade at their earliest opportunity, preferring for a variety of reasons to - at least temporarily - remain an FO. And for commuters not wishing to go back on reserve, that may make a lot of sense, deferring upgrade until they are senior enough to hold a line. Same with deferring upgrade until they can hold CA in their base of choice, or even until they can hold a line at least somewhere, if not their base of choice.
I looked a month or two ago and IIRC, NK has near 200 FOs senior to the junior CA, people that coukd have outbid him for that slot.
Predicting upgrade time is always pretty iffy.