Originally Posted by
symbian simian
All correct. I was more pointing it out, as I do in person to the many FOs I fly with that think a 3 year upgrade will still be there after the merger. And for the ones that take the first available now, that they will likely be on reserve for a lot longer than it is currently. This was not pushing a ISL agenda towards RS, more of a reality check for junior guys picking NK over DL (yes, they exist).
The math is interesting, I saw a pdf made by a jet blue pilot a while back with various seniority stats and projections. 22.5% of B6 pilots will be retired in the next ten years, (assuming no age 67) and if you add the smaller number of NK retirements it amount to just under 19% of the current combined pilot group (using ~8000 total pilots). Stretch this out 15 years where 43% of current B6 will retire, and add in the NK numbers and that makes 33% of the current combined group gone. By 20 years it will be exactly half the current pilot group retired.
Assuming the new B6 doesn’t stop growth in that time, and in 20 years we reach 12,000 pilots, which is a modest 200 pilot per year gain, a 25 year old new hire today will be at 33% system seniority by age 45. Not a terrible place to be with another 20 years to go.
Obviously there are massive legacy retirement numbers, but a back side of the wave 25 year old would have to run the same numbers for a legacy and find where their high water seniority mark could take them considering the thousands of younger pilots hired in recent years. It’s highly probable that at the ten to fifteen year mark they would gain substantially more relative ground at a legacy, but that could taper off quickly in the second half of their careers.