Originally Posted by
TradeWinds
So someone hired today, or recently, won’t see the very bottom of the captain list for 15 years where in all the other young people hired over the last 5-10 years who were in their 30’s will have another 20 years to go in the left seat in front of them — Assuming no other mergers, recessions, or downsizing.
The vast majority of the young people hired in the last 5-10 years haven't seen the left seat yet. It's the pain of single fleet operations, Captain upgrade is your only career advancement move. When you introduce widebodies you have a lot of people who would rather go WB FO than NB CA, so you see much more junior upgrades.
Alaska doesn't have that, and even if they get a no fence SLI, there are going to be very few WB positions available from the time SLI finishes until we take our 17th 787. The number of WB aircraft the combined entity will have is a small percentage of the overall fleet. Especially given the fact that the 787 is moving to SEA prior to SLI so all the positions for the aircraft on property will be spoken for by legacy HA pilots. Plan for a very slow upgrade if you come to Alaska.