Originally Posted by
Hedley
They can't mandate captain slots in the timeline that this bid intends to train. As of now, new hires bidding those slots will still need to be off probation and have 500 hrs at United. If they were to use the 9-K training footprint, they couldn't train until August at the earliest.
This is a true statement.
However, the company also knows this and they are playing the long game here.
Put out a massive number of NB Cap bids now that includes your expected need much further down the road than you would normally put out knowing that a great many will go unfilled. Then assign those to new hires now and train them as FOs. Those folks will end up going to training on the Captain slot next Fall or Winter (24-25).
Given the deliveries we have coming this is a virtual no risk scenario for the company. As others of have said, the company will hope it can get some more senior folks to bid in the short term as the base balancing fest from the last couple of years will not be needed anymore. The re-growth of SFO and EWR are much more likely now, so the fear of nobody coming in behind you is greatly diminished.