Originally Posted by
FriendlyPilot
We just had a bid in February of this year where pilots under 3 years were getting Airbus CA, and it wasn't even a very big bid. Also we haven't had a Narrowbody bid since then, only a couple backfills, so to say "its gone senior" isn't really accurate since when you only have one backfill and its someone with 7,000 seniority number that's because its only one person so it isn't a fair picture of actual seniority.
It's really a semantic difference. It doesn't matter whether it's because we haven't had many NBCA vacancies recently or because more senior people are bidding it. The end result is the same: nobody in a new hire class (like BusBoi) should realistically be thinking they're going to snag a CA slot in indoc. That ship has sailed. (I missed it by one week lol).
It's anybody's guess whether the next NBCA bid will see those slots going to people with 2, 3, 4, or more years on property. The current snapshot reflects the FOMO we keep mentioning -- the very large number of senior FOs who delayed jumping the trash bag because they figured NBCA would always be available. When that dried up, it left a lot of them stuck in the right seat. In recent months as the new hire CAs finished upgrade training and started flying, a lot of those senior FOs wound up flying with people *way* junior to them.
And so I think you're going to continue to see a lot of those guys bidding NBCA in every foreseeable vacancy bid until they are awarded it. I can literally name 8 of my friends whom this describes perfectly, and that's just *one* BES I'm talking about, let alone all of our NB bases and aircraft types.
Regardless, though -- it's still incredible and unprecedented movement.