Originally Posted by
HiFly5
With the hiring being slowed down, does anyone have a valid reason why the company has chosen to do so? Is it as simple as the airplane is nearing full staffing? Or something more complex?
Probably just returning to pre Covid norms. In early 2020 We had 14.5k ish pilots and were hiring to get closer to 15.5k by end of 2020. Instead with Covid we shrunk to roughly 12.5k by summer 2021. We hired like crazy to staff the air line back to what we had pre Covid plus a little growth. Contract 2019 drove staffing requirements higher and that probably influenced keeping hiring strong through the end of 2023. Now we seem to be getting back to normal with growth and retirements. 1,100 is still a good number and should let us staff for about 45 or so net growth planes plus the 500 or so retirements we have this year (barring age 67)