Originally Posted by
Excargodog
In the SHORT term, it is going to be a mess. Just read the regional threads and see the problems they are having already. But I think you forget the thing driving legacy hiring. It’s RETIREMENTS, both those incentivized early in COVID and the age related transitions ongoing. Of course newbies are going in at the bottom. Lacking any seniority whatsoever, they go into whatever vacancy the company wants them in. But it’s the retirements at the top that start the domino effect in training. These are - in general - the most desirable slots around, and anybody who isn’t seat locked can bid on them. In A ULCC you have basically two levels of pay at any seniority, FO and CA. But with four or five types, often with different levels of pay and operating out of different bases - some more senior than others - the incentive to move from fleet to fleet is a very real one and the churn from retirements is always there. That is going to be a HUGE overhead cost for them in the future - not just that it brings with it the cost of multiple sims and multiple FAA training programs, but that you are PAYING those people and they aren’t generating revenue while they are going through the program.
You better believe when a senior 787 guy retires, other people will want that job. The guy who gets it will be the most senior guy who bids for it, not necessarily the most senior 787 FO. When NK or F9 loses a CA, it costs an upgrade of someone in the same type and current in the aircraft and the loss of productivity of that person and their pay while in training as well as the cost of the recruiting and training and a couple months of the pitifully poor first year pay for the NK or F9 newbie. But type ratings brought on by retirements are often a new type rating for an existing CA of ten years and their loss of productivity. The money involved isn’t even close. It’s a HUGE ULCC advantage, and don’t let management try to convince you any different.
The ULCCs are NOT at a disadvantage to the legacies in this situation, they have opportunities they have never had before. And will it cost them money to seize those advantages? Yeah, but the next CBA was going to cost them money anyway barring a recession or a couple of legacies going bankrupt, and they are bright enough to know that.
Guess we are somewhat talking past each other. Yes, ULCCs and the big 3 have entirely different models. The big 3 have taken on the additional costs of having multiple fleet types. With that they get revenue from sources that aren't readily available to the ULCCs. The additional costs are absolutely real, so are the additional revenues. Those differences are important on the $ side of things for sure. Having a single fleet is definitely a savings on training costs, no dispute there.
What I am talking about is strictly on the manpower side of things. Regardless of the costs, the big 3 are hiring at a record pace and it is that hiring that is driving the attrition at the regionals and the ULCCs. Whether that hiring is too expensive or not, does not change the fact that, in the short term, it is happening and every airline has to deal with it.
To say that the hiring we are seeing at the big 3 is "It's retirments" is completely wrong! What is driving it is that all of them are in the process of moving flying from the regionals to the mainline. They all recognize (perhaps Delta first) that the 50 seat airplane is a POS and even if they liked it, there would not be enough pilots to fly it! So, they are systematically upgrading their aircraft size across their entire route map. Several small cities will fall off the map, but the ones that remain will be upgauged. Looking at the fleet plan for each airline you can see this transformation.
In the case of UA for instance, we are getting 40 more NB aircraft this year, 138 NB aircraft next year and have an additional 300+ on order. There is no plan to park any of our current aircraft for the next several years, as all of these new aircraft are "replacing" 50 seaters at the regionals.
Between now and the end of 2023 we have 459 pilots that will reach age 65. (relatively low for us due to the previous early out) In that same time we will take delivery of almost 180 NB aircraft!!! That will drive at least 1800 new pilot jobs by the end of 2023. That doesn't include the hiring to cover the 15+ 787s we are supposed to take delivery of in that timeframe (if Boeing can get it together and start delivering those again). That means that we will have to have hired at least 2260 pilots by the middle of 2023 to get all the pilots needed on the line by Christmas 2023. Only 20% of those hired would be due to retirements. So, it is not retirements that is driving the hiring, it is the transformation of the industry that is happening all around us as we speak. Less regional flying, more mainline flying. That is great news for all of us in the long term.
In the short term there will be pain!!! That pain should help us all get some much needed contractual improvements, but even with those, I think this summer is going to be a trainwreck on the operational side of things!