Originally Posted by maniac28

I have strong interest in this post. I am just about in the same boat. We can be telling a completely different story before you're even in range for an upgrade to WB CA. Or in 10 years from now you might already be over there. I've seen a few United bid packets. 757/767 SFO looks pretty chill as far as leg counts. But if you don't live in Norcal do you want to? The 737 IAH looks like it can be a beating at times. MCO doesn't look so bad. Late nights transitioning into early mornings. I'm not a fan of 30 hour overnights where you get in at midnight and go out 6:00am 2 days later.

This age 67 deal can get real interesting. ICAO is a hard no raising it past 65. That means if you turn 65 on a wide body then you gotta go back to a narrow body your final 2 years and be limited to where you can fly. Basically just North America. People have told me and I agree that I don't think airlines are going to want to train someone to do that there last 2 years. They might potentially offer an early out like they did for Covid. If someone is considering SWA or an FO with over a year to upgrade this should concern them more than anywhere else. SWA isn't impacted by ICAO because they don't go beyond the North American continent. Those guys will stay past 65 uneventfully and add 2 more years to an already slow upgrade time.

Regardless of what the unions or airlines are lobbying for, Washington will do whatever they damn well please as we have seen over and over again. Then they'll say look at us we fixed the pilot shortage and did something about the airline operational difficulties. They don't care about the unintended consequences.