I have personally asked this questions to several FTI's that are being sent back to the line as well as a few management types at the training center. They all seem to have the same reasoning: Its too expensive to keep these guys on as FTI's. We're not at the point were we're running 2-4 classes of 30 ea anymore (where we were when all of those guys went form the line to being FTIs last year).

FTIs get paid a 100 hour garauntee at their current seniority based pay level. For most of them that means a 100 hour of pretty senior CA pay... thats a ton of cash to shell out on the companies side when they're not working. Also recently NWA asked us to get rid of instructors... because as i mentioned before we aren't running 2-4 classes of 30 or more anymore. So instead of laying off instructors hired during the training boom last year FTI's are getting kicked back to the line and sallaried employees (who make less than 100 hours of CA garauntee) are getting those spots, and even some of those guys are having to take week long shifts in crew schedueling.

You're not going to find me applauding management ever, but i give them a tip of the hat for trying to avoid laying off anyone (pilot, instructor or otherwise) in this scenario.