MOAB Part II, Bidding?
 

For the upcoming MOAB, I am wondering what bidding strategy is best given the 12 month conversion window.

-Is it better to wait for the Fall bid to get an award because it will potentially convert sooner?
-How many of those that were awarded Captain on last year’s bid went in the final months of the 12 month window? Ergo, is it a smarter strategy to NOT bid a left seat on a MOAB?

As always, bid what you want and want what you bid. I’m just wondering if strategy needs to play part in this like I do when I bid monthly schedules.

I am considering bidding widebody FO on the MOAB. I don’t want to do that if my conversion would be the following summer considering I MAY be awarded the same seat on a Fall bid and convert much earlier.

Thoughts?

Two observations from last years MOAB:

1.). You can't plan for when you train AT ALL. They own you while you have an outstanding bid requiring training. They can pretty much train you whenever and cancel it and move it as little as a day before you begin.

2.) Last years MOAB resulted in almost zero narrowbody CA slots for over a year. Demand is now high and I suspect will go senior compared to last year.

My advice, fwiw? If there is a position you want, bid it and deal with the schedule issues of training later.

If you want a dime a dozen plain jane B position, wait until the next bid. If you want a more difficult to acquire A position or WB B, bid the MOAB since there is no guarantee it will be there on the follow-up bid. 7erB and CS100b are tweeners, not sure which AE I'd aim for if that was my goal.

In before sailingfun comes in and says "it isn't a Moab just a 1 year bid" even though it's closing and opening categories each.


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According to what I am hearing it will not be even close to a MOAB. We will know when it’s posted.

So bid 350B ASAP then. Whether right or wrong, I view the ER category as part of the narrowbody stuff given that it is a newhire aircraft that does seemingly less and less international flying every month.

Regardless of whether you view the 7er as a wb or nb, the positions are more highly coveted and you can find yourself locked out of the category if you try to pick and choose when you bid it. IE, you might have the seniority to hold ATL7ERB this June, but you might not see it on another AE until next year. Your bidding seniority means nothing if it's not there to bid. If it's DTW350B you want, I'd definitely bid it at every opportunity. At some point the category will fill up and my guess is very few people will leave it once there.

Honestly you are best to bid what you want. There are no guarantees that the position you want will be on the next bid unless it is a junior FO position.

This next bid is going to be a mess no matter how they run it. Just the displacements alone in MSP could make a pretty big ripple in other categories.

I think the company's idea that opening a 320/73N position for each 88 position up north is looking at things way too simplistically. There are guys that don't want to train or may only want to deal with a short course (717).

The most junior MSP88A can hold ATL88A, ATL717A, DTW717A, LAX717A, NYC717A

I think what would be interesting to see is where all of the MSP88As commute from. I know a high percentage are locals, but there are tons of people probably looking at other commutes.


Long story short, who knows what positions will be opened each bid based on the unknowns of pilot bidding.....

This. Big time. I think a lot of guys thought there would be NB As in later AEs and didn’t count on the MOAB carrying all the way through this summer. Some folks are probably chomping at the bit. It will be interesting to see how senior the NB As go, particularly in NYC. I too think there will be a lot of senior people dropping in as they weigh having to wait another year.

Just because it’s a one year Bid doesn’t mean it’s going to be hyuuuge
This one might have more negative implications with the closing of dtw 777 and the md88 msp looming
I suspect some of the msp 88 captains might even bid 330b