In the past 5 years I have been here there was barely enough reserves, let alone having enough for ready reserves.

I just upgraded and NEVER in the past 5 years have I ever sat RR until I finally got to Captain.

I think that part of the issue is that when we started getting all the airplanes, we didn't get that much flying to go with them. Part of the problem with training and OE scheduling in the 200 was not that much flying. There are a number of people who got there 100 hrs just going back and forth between MSP-RAP-MSP-CWA-MSP, EVERYDAY. Not a lot to get hours.

When I was SAABing it, we flew over 85 hrs a month. I think that with all the transitions - courtship and the like, we just didn't get that many hours, as a whole company. Which is why people in the SAAB are not flying as much as we were. Now as things get closer to the winter schedule, I understand that all fleets are going to be flying more.

So with the amount of aircraft we are getting (not rumored), I guess we need about 200 more pilots - less the ones training right now for all fleets. I don't expect any increase beyond the 36,17,49 aircraft already on the books, at least until the merger is finalized. Then who knows.

Maybe Pinnacle will get all the 200's back. Maybe all the SAABs will get replaced with Dashes. Maybe we will get the Freedom 900's. I have heard it all. Maybe we should put 787 and 777 rates in our contract and see what that brings. It worked for mainline with the 175 so maybe it would work for us.

Bottom line is if you have over 1500 hours, you could upgrade pretty fast. If not, it could take you a while to get the time so...