I would agree that attrition is no longer an issue in the eyes of management, especially seeing that we lost one or two last month according to the union information.

why are we downgrading we still have 15 airplanes or so coming this year and max 9s and 8s still coming next year still need to staff those planes

And why are trying to buy an almost bankrupt airline with another 1100 pilots and a crappy Amazon contract that needs to be staffed yet.
If the company wants downgrades, this place will implode.
I’m in the “ I hope the merger fails” camp.

One answer is that the company needs to get bigger to hold up against the big-four in the long term. Organic growth is hard because you can't just go down to Airline Depot and load up your cart with all the gates and slots you need. Even harder these days because boeing.

Other answer is it's an ego/vanity project on the part of top execs.

Truth might be somewhere in between, but I think mostly the former.

The last few vacancies that drove upgrades were to provide the staffing for the scheduled deliveries. The 15 deliveries you mentioned, are already staffed as well as many more that we are not getting. I wouldn’t bank on getting all 15 of those either, it is Boeing we are talking about after all. Other factors also contribute, future load factors, economic variables etc. If we are overstaffed for the summer flying imagine what fall and winter looks like. Typically downgrades also equal furloughs, but furloughs are more difficult to recover if you need pilots again, downgrades are cheap and easy, one sim and everyone is still on property. In addition PBS, while nice that it is easier to bid, requires fewer pilots.

It’s highly likely the seniority list snapshot has already been taken. In at least DL/NW, UA/CO and VX/AS mergers, constructive notice was the date of the merger announcement and the snapshot date.

Very safe to assume that it will be strict DOH for all hires after early Dec 2023.

1Q analyst call didn't seem to hint at furloughs. You might read into ST's commentary that since the original plan was to replace 900's with Max, they can simply keep the 900's longer if they need capacity and the Max's haven't shown up. Also a mention of compensation from Boeing.

If the travel demand tanks, that's a different issue but despite all the doomsayers not only does recreational travel seem to remain a priority for consumers, business travel is now coming back too.

Most of those aircraft are replacements for older 900s. The Q1 earnings call they said they wouldn't get rid of as many aircraft to maintain capacity and they would also increase utilization. Which is why we are almost 50% red eyes in Seattle. We aren't downgrading anyone yet but like other posters have said it's cheap and easy. We have all seen stepping over dollars to pick up pennies here.

I'd be happy to take an EIL again.

Deliveries are coming, we are getting 4 more airplanes this month. We aren't that overstaffed....

It isn't cheap and easy when you have to potentially furlough FOs to facilitate the downgrades.

When I spoke to a rep the downgrades could happen without furloughs.

we have 10 built waiting to be delivered and 12 next year coming. Shane tacked said in the investor call about head count vs fleet count

“We watch that closely. We had to staff up a bit throughout the end of last year to get ready for this year and the spring, but I don't think that were going to be in a significant drag position from a cost perspective. And to the extent that we are having conversations with Boeing in terms of compensating us for that.”

sounds like they are going to ask Boeing to pay us for the extra overhead cost from the lack of plane

seems like we are in good shape

on the fleet plan no max 9’s next year but my guess is they don’t wanna plan for any and wait see on those

but 12 max 8’s next year so nothing huge but much better than the doom and gloom in here

i would tend to agree if load factors and yield suddenly drop then yes I do think we downgrade

but on the Q1 investor call business is good so far

but takes one world event to shake things up in a hurry

I tend agree looking at the reserve reports for CAs and FOs for may

ANC seems the most overstaffed on ca and FOs behind sfo but it isn’t by a awful amount and June there’s more flying than may and then July more then June seems we are right staffed for summer

time will tell

Wish I can post screenshots here but from the call, Shane Tackett outright says that the airline is not materially overstaffed. Also keep in mind that the company could have canceled the march bid if they were really worried. The March bid had a bunch of upgrades and that was two months after the MAX groundings from the door plug.

from the earrings call
Dan McKenzie -- Seaport Global Securities -- Analyst

Hey, good morning. Thanks. A couple of questions here. I guess my first question really is a head count versus fleet count question.

So what number of deliveries are you -- I guess, are you guys hiring to? And then I guess where I'm going with that is the overhead or the cost burden that Alaska is carrying because the deliveries are coming in a little less than expected. And then I guess, is Boeing compensating you for that cost burden?

Shane Tackett -- Executive Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Dan. A couple of things here on this one. I think we originally had anticipated 23 deliveries. Of course, when they come is an important variable as well.

As evidenced by our revised full-year capacity guide and capex guide, we expect to get fewer than that. Boeing actually has 10 aircraft essentially built and going through the final review and ticketing process. So we expect to get all of those and probably some additional units beyond that. So we're thinking somewhere between 10 and 20.

We have a number of aircraft we are planning to retire. So many of those aircraft were going to replace older 900 classics. So our headcount situation is in really good shape relative to the delivery stream coming our way. We're not going to be materially overstaffed.

I don't believe in any part of our business. We watch that closely. We had to staff up a bit throughout the end of last year to get ready for this year and the spring, but I don't think that we're going to be in a significant drag position from a cost perspective. And to the extent that we are having conversations with Boeing in terms of compensating us for that.

towards the end of the all

https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-t...%20of%20margin.

That's true, but diminishing economic returns since FO pay is 67% of CA pay. More once you account for bennies and annual training overhead, much of which is the same for all pilots regardless of seat and longevity.

Although there's probably a significant morale and future recruiting benefit to NOT being the first and very possibly the only airline to furlough in 2024. That's one of those tripping over a dollar to pick up a dime things.

I seriously doubt furlough.

We're running roughly 15% reserve coverage for May and June. While the line values are down a bit that's a far cry from needing to downgrade or fulough anyone.

my tinfoil hat theory

Alaska is telling Boeing due to delivery delays unless we get compensated we will have to downgrade pilots. A move to strong arm boeing into compensating them for the lack of airplanes

Why would Boeing care if Alaska downgrades, or furloughs (I don’t think Alaska is going to furlough), hires or upgrades? Boeings job is to deliver the planes not staff the airline.

let me have my tinfoil hat don’t kill the fun

I don’t think there is any reasonable chance of furlough…none.

I spoke to a rep when the incentive lines for March and April were implimented. The rep said it was to prevent downgrades. On face value it seems like downgrades are on the table and being considered by managment. It may have been an over reaction to the Boeing troubles. However, it seems to be the go to move.

Who knows what is true or not but some friends in higher places have said there have been zero discussions on downgrades, an amount, or anything of that nature. I wouldn't agree to say that it is the "go-to" move. Again, if there is a legitimate overstaffing in a given seat, then maybe. We obviously were overstaffed enough to offer LOAs and ILs but again, we continued to upgrade first officers to captain, during this process lol. We knew PBS was going to make things more efficient which is why the company wanted it, so the lack of open time isn't super surprising but clearly, we are in a period of slightly reduced flying, a bit of overstaffing (apparently in both seats) and we are waiting for deliveries to make up the difference.

The closest I can get to the negotiation table is through my rep. He said that the letter allowing reserve pick up on days off was cancelled to allow for paid leaves which would prevent downgrades. He said that there was a lot of negative feedback about this that peaked when premium started getting handed out in late March. He said if the MEC had not chosen to negotiate down the path of temporarily pausing reserve day off pick up and also offering paid leaves that there would have been a certain number of junior captains downgraded. I don't have access to an insider like OTZ does, or you apparently (lol) but asking one of the parties at the negotiation table about it seems pretty legit to me. This isn't my opinion and I heard this said by 2 different reps at different times. Maybe it is seen as an over reaction by now. Judging by our internal forum the MEC caught a lot of flack about the path to stop furloughs so they certainly took a beating over nothing, if what you say is true. For now I'd trust that my rep isn't lying to me.