Originally Posted by
FangsF15
His overall point is valid though. There really isn’t a historical norm. It’s always changing. And it certainly isn’t 17 years, which is an extreme outlier, caused by the lost decade.
2 years is the other extreme. The middle of that is 9-5 years, give or take. And that’s probably about right for ‘stable’ times.
I think this is spot on. 2 years is definitely an outlier, but so is 2 decades. Historically I think upgrade times seems to be longer for a few reasons
1) more people seemed willing to take first upgrade due to things like credit caps.
2) pilots hired tended to be younger.
3) at least some aircraft had 3 cockpit crew positions
4) some majors had mandatory upgrades
all of these factors combined to historically keep upgrades at a distance for new hires. I’ve been told historically it took somewhere around 60% systemwide to upgrade at most majors. Recently that number seems to be closer to 80%.
I think the first 2 I listed are making a big difference. If everyone hired is under 32, a big hiring wave in front of you can have a huge group roughly your age senior to you for most of your career. It seems like for the past 10 years we have been hiring pilots well into their 50s with an average age almost 40. That translates to decent movement even if you are hired towards the end of a wave. Junior CA being a less desirable position relatively speaking obviously helps those who want an early upgrade.