This is not an unreasonable take. If a not insignificant subset of our pilots is happy sticking it out in the WB right seat for 20+ years until they can jump the trash can, (and yes I look at those lines and it can be a great QOL so I get it), then there has to be some reasonable backstop that fills NB CA seats if we don’t fill them (keeping in mind the paid move provisions, removal of freezes and other improvements, etc all activate in this TA before the accelerated CA provision can kick in). We value the number of widebodies we fly. It’s fantastic. Do you think we’ll take the 100 787 options if we can’t staff the NB’s to get pax to them? I don’t think the solution is mini pilot bases in everyone’s favorite outstation or positive space for all. I would have been happy with a greater pay split between CA/FO to incentivize things but we seem to pattern bargain there.

There has to be a semi-same way to fill seats and this is one viable way. Freezes are waived before it happens (a plus), paid CA moves happen (a new incentive), and the training and flight hour requirement is still more stringent than Delta’s (we seem to remember every moment where we lag Delta with laser precision while forgetting every moment where we’ve got better contract wording).