I'm a litte confused about some of the speculation about the upcoming dispacement bid at UPS. It seems that everyone is assuming the junior 74Y and M11 ANC FOs will be displaced to the panel. I don't see how this is possible or likely. The company actually awarded about 7 more ANC 74Y FO awards than they had original and recurring vacancies, which included the most junior pilot in the company. From a company standpoint it makes sense: all the junior FEs will most likely be heading to ANC when the DC-8 goes away, so why not let them bid up there and save the moving costs. Sure the 74Y FO list will be pretty fat, but as the 767s come online, that list will take a lot of vacancies in the lower 48 and their replacements will already be trained. Plus why would they award more positions than they had to if they were sending everyone back to the panel?

Roberto explained in a previous thread that it would be impossible to displace the bottom FE's to ANC since the FE seat had the most junior pilot on the list, and you need someone junior to you in order to displace. Now that ANC 74Y is the most junior seat in the company, how is it possible to displace out of that seat? The only way the company did that on the last bid was that these people were on probation and could be placed wherever UPS wanted them.

The only way I could see it possible would be by following the guidance under Insufficient Bids on p. 320 of the contract. That allows the company to fill vacancies by inverse seniority if there aren't enough bidders for a seat. However, if they needed to fill a vacancy on the DC8 FE, why allow more FEs bid off than were required.....and wouldn't these vacancies need to be filled on a vacancy bid, not a displacement bid?

If my thinking is correct, the only additional people coming to the panel would be the junior FOs in the lower 48 who choose the FE over ANC. This would still leave plenty of DC-8 FEs (staffing would be similar to the other seats) and save the company a ton of moving expenses. I'm by no means an expert, and have probably overlooked something. If I'm missing something here, please chime in....