That’s because the company has zero problem telling a qualified person “sure we’ll offer you a CJO with a nonbinding pinky promise to get you a class 3 years from now, if we’re even holding indoc classes then, and we know there’s about a 30% chance you even intend to stay at United, so let’s see where we are in 2-3 years and go from there”. The company has a much bigger concern hiring someone and getting them a class date 4 months from now when history proves that we cannot depend on Boeing’s delivery schedule to staff the airline so we aren’t even sure how many FO’s we’ll need.

I like the UMPP program and it’s a step in the right direction, but it’s not something that anyone should rely on. If anyone gets a UMPP CJO they should continue interviewing because we have no idea what the industry will look like in the mid or long term. The long term hiring projections and who we interview and hire for what we need next month are very different equations.