ORD Seniority
 

First post...so treat me gently :).

Hypothetical situation - you want to be domiciled in Chicago and had an offer in hand from both American and United:

1. What is the relative seniority of the ORD domicile within each airline and

2. Best educated guess on which airline has the best opportunity for moving up the ranks of seniority at ORD most quickly.

Realize that part 2 is a bit of a "crystal ball" question but invite educated opinions. Even uneducated ones are welcome as long as they are funny.

Also realize that you might be only able to speak for one, not both of the companies wrt seniority but appreciate any info out there.

Thanks!

At AA ORD is one of the most senior bases. Also there’s been some recent news about ORD with regards to new terminal construction and from what i remember it’s not favorable for AA.

Is United even running classes? I was in the pool there for almost a year before going to indoc so don’t even count on going to class with United. America is running a class every two weeks

Not sure if United is running classes. The gouge on this site is that they will be hiring 450 in 2018. But that qualifies as rumor I guess.

Any chance ORD is so senior at AA that it might become junior shortly? I.E., is it so top heavy that it will be hit first and hardest when retirements start happening in earnest in a few years?

I have never looked at the airline online tools for pilots so I don't know how much visibility you have when you go online to bid. It might be an impossible question to answer.

Another one for MainlineAF...do you recall who the terminal expansion was favoring...if not American?

United is getting 50% more new gates in ORD than AA is. It is going to become a super hub again. They just re-banked to allow more connecting flights. That’s the corporate plan.

In the most recent bid at AA ORD 737 FO dropped somewhat from where it was. It now seems possible to make it there in about a year (that is only my guess). But it is a relatively senior base and will be for quite a while. With retirements even senior bases will have movement, though you may be on reserve longer there, or hold a worse line than more junior bases.

At United ORD was really junior in the past few years. I know people who got it almost immediately. But I don't know what their hiring looks like right now.

The dispute between AA and UAL at ORD was over 5 future gates in the proposed expansion. The only way that will have a large effect on the pilots is if AA goes nuclear and massively shrinks at ORD in response. I have no idea how likely or unlikely that is, but for now AA is refusing to sign onto expansion plans, at least according to a local newspaper article here (I have no inside knowledge).

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...228-story.html

Easy... take the first class date offered, then go to United when it has a class for you.

Those 5 “future gates” represent the 5 gates American added, and United is merely getting 5 additional gates as well. Its like American is saying “We got our 5 gates, but we don’t want United to get any more”. American hasn’t signed the deal, so they may end up abandoning ORD all together.

If you want to live in Chicago, and have an offer from UA and AA, you should pick UA.

Bigger base, I think they have more foreign destinations (w/b flying), and the city of Chicago just favored UA by strengthening UA while weakening AA.