Remember that our recent history that had all the unfilled Captain Vacancies also had restrictions on when you could bid for Captain. Most importantly that you had completed probation.

With the new contract any new Captain vacancy would have to go through the current seniority list including all pilots with a "freeze" and those still on probation before it could every be offered/forced upon new hires. So, the next vacancy bid (even with a possibility of December training) will be the first time that those new eligibility criteria will be used. That coupled with the other changes to the contract, will either be enough or they won't. All of us can have opinions on how it will effect the bidding of pilots, but the reality of how this influences an individual will be what determines whether this "forced Captain" option ever happens.

With all the new airplanes we have coming it is certainly a possibility, but just the change to make pilots on probation eligible creates over 2000 new eligible bidders, so I am guessing (see opinion reference above) it will be several vacancy bids before we get back to unfilled Captain assignments.