Well you heard wrong, the most junior captain is 2200/3300. So how long will it take 1100 guys to retire? 11 years.

If it happens sooner than that consider yourself fortunate. There are TONS of FOs who've bypassed and the Virgin America guys are way younger as a group than the alaska guys, so there is no huge retirement wave or bubble.

Also there is no big order or net growth coming, its parking 70+ A320/21s and getting a similar number of 737s. Even as a 27 year old you wouldnt retire in the top 50.

 

Great conversation going on about the seniority thing.

I understand better movement at UA or DL, but as someone who has no 121 experience, would you all take living in base with slower movement over commuting to SFO/LAX/SEA for the entirety of your 35 year career? That’s what it’s kind of coming down to for me.

 

I think we ended 2019 with 237 mainline aircraft. We’re projected to end 2024 with 265.

 

our growth isn’t real growth. It’s just more seats/bigger more efficient aircraft.

 

Staffing those airplanes is going to be a problem. As the other airlines get new contracts, it’s tough to see why newbies would come/stay at Alaska.

 

all really depends where you’re commuting from and how many daily flights out of there you can catch a ride on. Honestly the biggest reason DL interests me is for the seniority movement. I can justify the commute to SEA or SLC because they’re easy from where I’m at and eventually I’d move to base (24, no kids, no GF/wife) but every persons situation is different. Do I think upgrades are gonna be 11 years? No not really. More likely in the 5-6 year range on average. The pros with DL is you’re flying less especially out of SEA. Long call there is great and the lines are built very well out of SEA. You’ll fly less and go to work less on average with DL then with AS. The pro with AS is you can drive to work which will undoubtedly save you nights stuck in a hotel or sleeping in the airport waiting for a flight home. There’s pros and cons and personally if we continue at our current rate of floundering and not really expanding our route structure and fleet size it’s only a matter of time before our shares dip and we become the right price to be bought. By who I have no idea. Could be 5 years could be never.

 

A commute is still a commute. Some people have it nailed down. Personally, I never got used to it for the times in my career where I've had to do it.

 

That's a static assumption of no more pilots, no more planes, no more growth. It's not linear like that.

 

correct, and I’m no Alaksa sympathizer but here is just the facts you look at the Q3 10-Q (that was before the announcement of taking the 52 Options) we were slated to grow by 28 airplanes between now and 2026. With them exercising the options between now and 2026 we will get 80 new airplanes. according to the investors talks we will retire the 10 321s and 8 737s. Net growth of 62 planes. So not bad growth coming but the caveat. Can we staff it? now here comes my opinion.
Can we grow by 620 pilots ( assuming 10 pilots per plane) in 3 years? With the people I talk to on line and seeing the unions hiring vs attrition chart. no, we can not staff 62 new airplanes. so that’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.

For the sake of all of us here and our well being I sure hope they can but the contract going to need section 25 improvements and pay improvements if we want to grow by 62 planes in the next 3 years

it’ll be interesting to see the Q4 10-Q

 

Current Q3 fleet plan