Originally Posted by
FriendlyPilot
I'm not advocating for anyone to leave their airline to go to United, Delta, American or wherever. But when someone says it will take 5 years to get 2,500 behind them at a legacy, is pure bunk. That's easily less than 2 years. I remember people laughing when we had 12,000 pilots and were told we would be at 20,000 by 2025 (we made it to 18,000 instead). I don't think the 30,000 pilots by 2030 will happen, but I think 25,000 total is likely. This means we have to hire 10,000 pilots by 2030 because of retirement and growth.
Im not saying United isn’t growing. Im saying I highly doubt it’s going to grow at such a lofty goal. The domestic market is clearly oversaturated currently and we seem to be a witches titty away from the next issue. Whether that’s another Max crisis, door plug, engine issue, tariff, recession none of us can predict. Maybe nothing will happen and we can all smell the roses. Doubtful. All we can predict is something will come and derail those plans just like they already have over and over since the Covid crisis.
The other problem is to say (not you saying it) Spirit is dead and there’s no chance. There is certainly a higher risk in staying right now but also a potentially higher reward. A merger/buyout would be more likely than ch. 7 IMO. Is the LC segment dead? No. Far from it. It has grown as a market segment some 500% since the legacies added the low cost seats. Now there are too many seats. Okay so now the LCCs are in the process of pivoting their business model just as the legacies have done in the past to compete with the LCCs. Let’s see how it plays out. If United is growing as much as you say then there should be no problem in getting a job when the time comes if it all falls apart.