I don’t think management is really worried about unfilled captain vacancies. How many is United hiring a month… that is about how many people are becoming eligible to bid Captain every month.

As a new contract comes close (I predict 2024), many will realize their window of opportunity to bid captain while junior is quickly closing and bid over to the left seat.

If you’re going to be junior, you might as well be junior flying with your favorite captain and making 300k+ a year.