That new DEN seniority is with the unfilled vacancies out in SFO,LAX and EWR. The next bid will likely drive that number even more junior. This was a predominantly WB focused bid so we ended up with 157 unfilled 787 and 777 FO slots across DCA,EWR, and SFO, along with the 46 unfilled Cap slots.

We are being told that the December vacancy bid is going to be NB focused so the potential for unfilled Captain slots on that one is even larger. Because of that we are hoping that the company will move more of the bids and flying to the mid-continent hubs of DEN, IAH, and ORD (heck maybe even some to CLE) Those would be less likely to go unfilled. Either way, I would expect the DEN Cap seniority mentioned above to get substantially more junior on the next bid, how junior will depend on how many of the bids the company decides to move into DEN from the West Coast???

All of this is based on a huge influx of planes next year coupled with a strange confluence of COVID flying and probation rules. At UA to hold a Captain bid you must be both off probation and have flown over 500 hours at UA. Because of COVID we have a good number of pilots that have completed probation but do not yet have the 500 hours. This is especially true for those 2019 hires that were on the airbus during the height of COVID as that fleet had less flying so the reserves were almost never used. That coupled with all of the 800 new hires this year are still on probation, so I am sure well over a 1000 pilots on the bottom of the list were not eligible for the award. A good couple hundred of them will become eligible over the next month or two as flying has returned domestically so all those airbus folks are flying much more. However the actual post COVID (if that is a thing) hiring didn't start until last spring so we are still prob 6 months from any of those bottom 800 folks completing probation.