First, all vacancies are awarded. Then the reductions are processed. Anyone bidding out of a reduced spot for a vacancy reduces that reduction in base/seat by 1. If you’re involuntary reduced, you can bid into ANY position your seniority can hold and in effect kick the bottom guy out. Even a bid with 200 Boeing CA vacancies and 200 Bus reductions will have large displacements because the Bus reductions are strictly in SFO and LAX, and the Boeing additions are spread over 4 bases. Maybe 5. Time will tell.

In any case, be ready for involuntary displacements and if you’re junior, bid ALL seats and bases you are okay with.

This is pretty good gouge. The current plan is two reduction bids… The last plan I saw was 80 reductions on the Airbus with about 100 737 CA positions opening. The current plan is two bids similar size, Oct 31 & Jan 31 effective.
Last I heard 737 SFO opening is still up in the air. They really are hesitant about opening it.

It will be a blood bath if they don’t open a Boeing SFO and just outright close the SFO base. :eek:

What they should do is open 737 NYC (JFK/EWR). I'm not going to waste any energy explaining why, although FAR 117 comes to mind.

We are not dealing with deep thinkers here, and thus the tragedy for the Alaska pilot group.

Cheers - Rob.

So to sum it all up, there’s gonna be a lot of ****ed off people system wide…

That’s for sure, my uneducated guess is no SFO boeing base, lots of downgrades and displacements, junior upgrade goes somewhere around 6-7 years.

It seems now that the whispers on the wind are leaning towards no SFO Boeing base initially. Such that the Airbus base in SFO will be fully closed prior to further consideration of what they are back to calling”a Bay Area base”….Network planning believes that “push through” flying can balance the lack of a base in a single fleet environment…It seems that way too much indecision on something as simple and basic as a pilot base is going on here. Keep in mind that the FA base is unaffected by the pilot base shenanigans.

I don’t see any of this. I doubt more then a couple downgrades… all pretty much voluntary. Upgrade slides maybe towards 5 years. SFO, they can’t make up their mind. They think there are significant crew savings in closing it. I kinda think it will open in the 2nd displacement bid, 1-3 odds still it doesn’t ever open 😱… The back out of SFO is really pretty junior in the CA seat…. Maybe a mid 800 to 900 numbers, could possibly be displaced, but dude that is still really a pretty Junior pilot. I think many will volunteer to prevent themselves from being stuck on RSV at that 8-900 number… which is a solid line holder in every other base. Displacement off the back end is likely 1800-2200 which buys that dude very little. It will be fine! Check back in 45 days… this will be a nonevent, worry about nothing.

The word is reserve staffing. Ladner and Day believe removing a base helps solve that problem. Not much more SFO flying planned in the mainline structure and at the level it is now it is not above what pre-merger Alaska was doing with no base ever planned….Those are the numbers and arguments that are in play in the staffing and network arena right now. To close a nearly 90% commuter base is dirt cheap. No one is moving their principal residence. If they open a new SFO/Bay Area base in a year or two they have lost nothing. Alaska flight operations also believes that driving off east coast commuters is a positive thing. Remember, this is a Seattle company and that kind of a move is common strategy in this soulless city.

When is the bid coming out?