Upgrade is driven sby seniority, not previous flight time. There are currently approximately 625 pilots on the seniority list, which means a new hire FO effectively has about 300 FOs ahead of them before upgrade becomes realistic. Based on recent trends, typical upgrade time is running around two years.

However, many FOs are intentionally delaying upgrade. The primary reason is quality of life: most want to wait until they can reasonably expect to hold a captain line rather than spending an extended period on captain reserve. Others delay to avoid the career risk of a failed upgrade checkride, especially if they’re considering leaving for another carrier.

As a result, you’ll occasionally see junior captain slots trickle down, but those pilots tend to sit on reserve for a long time. When more senior FOs finally do upgrade, those junior captains often get pushed even further down the captain list.

Reserve QOL is highly base-dependent:

If you live in base, reserve can actually be very manageable.

If you commute, reserve quality of life is usually quite poor.

On the upside, there are rumors of significant attrition combined with 14 new aircraft expected in 2026. With each aircraft creating six additional captain positions, that’s up to 84 new captain slots, which could meaningfully accelerate upgrade times.