Originally Posted by
OpieTaylor
Fairly sensationalized, the hiring is because of all the early outs.
When Covid started the big 3 let too many pilots leave early. When those pilots are replaced and normal retirement attrition is all they are hiring for things will become less crazy.
The current wave, from post Covid to today, does not represent the big 3 annual retirements. It represents the early outs, retirements during Covid, and annual retirements.
It takes 2-3 years to develop a CFI into an RJ CA. Even a 62 year old has enough time to contribute to that process. The big 3 didn’t account for needing to keep every 62 year old to allow a CFI to become an RJ CA.
If there was anyway for the early outs to return you would see how fast it would normalize, with good movement, but not fleet parking movement.
It isn't just early retirements, it is also fleet growth. Name a major airline that doesn't have significant orders for new aircraft on the books....go ahead, I'll wait. AA has the fewest and there are still dozens more airplanes arriving this year alone.
The "big 3" are retiring about 2000 pilots each year between now and 2030. That is still a lot of hiring even if there was no growth.
The other thing to remember is that we will soon start getting to the point where pilots will have had 20 years of "good times" before retirement. That hasn't happened for a while. Pensions and retirement plans were all wiped out and many pilots had to start over in the not very distant past. Those days are mostly behind us now because we have our own retirement with 16% put in each paycheck. So, fewer pilots will have to work to 65 to have the QOL that they want in retirement. Right now, a large percentage do not wait until 65. Of those 55 year olds that are at the legacies now, the vast majority are planning on getting out by 60. They have $2mil in their 401k already and are financially sound. There are always exceptions, but for the most part, most will not need to work until 65.