Planetrain

I think SEA220A will go surprisingly junior.

MrMustache

I'm guessing low 9,000s

gloopy

Wasn't that just 2 pilots on one AE one time though? Then 93% of the airline was walking around saying "I can hold Captain" LOL!

tripled

premerger dal gave hints that they might have to staff 777b with newhires if 08/09 intl growth plans came to pass. They didn’t and they didn’t but it caught one’s imagination.

Big E 757

Ok, cliff notes version because I saw this misunderstanding the other day and no one commented on it, so I’ll try to clarify, but I’m probably wrong again...and then I’m taking my APC break...

Someone earlier mentioned that after this bid there would be positions for 350 new hires. Someone mistook the 350 new hire positions for A350 new hire positions. Someone quoted it and then someone else said they did that cause they’re getting ready to hire, like they did with the 777.

a couple of you are talking past each other, I think, but I’m probably wrong. Peace, fellas, and ladies.

Also, after the craziness of this past year, it is absolutely impossible to “guess” how junior or senior ANY position is going to go here. For everyone that is loving not being used as WB FO, there is a guy stuck in a hotel in some foreign country who was let into his room by a police person that didn’t give the occupant a key to his or her room so they couldn’t leave. The NB guys are sick of either dead heading every other day or sitting 3.5 hours, to fly to an 11 hour overnight. The NB reserve guys and girls, at least in my fleet are being used every day on reserve...things have been different recently, and not in a good way. Those who bid based on the last few months, might seek seniority and down bid to be senior. The Pollyanna’s (that’s not a dispersion) will bid on what they think the future holds in the next year or two. There’s no right answer, but having said all that, people’s perception of our current reality and the reality going forward, is more polarized, in my opinion, than at any other time in 20 years, so yeah, bid what you want, but most importantly, want every position on your bid. Now I’m out for a while. Peace!

Edit: All while we have a couple thousand pilots who have been making close to the same money for sitting at home on NQAT status. You want to know the only certainty? If NQAT was a biddable position, it’d go to the most senior pilots on the seniority list.

I’m not bashing the NQAT pilots! I promise. I’m bashing whoever is in charge of staffing.

crazyjaydawg

I think you are correct. Anyways, pre-Covid training department was pushing that A330 new hires were coming. It never happened.

At United, people were getting right seat of the B777 in under a year (they can move up pay rates without a freeze). Therefore some folks prognosticated that it would happen here.

Instead Delta had NB CAs at less than a year for similar reason (seat lock can’t stop an upgrade).

At UAL WB reserve sucks, like you don’t get X days sucks (oversimplification). At DAL NB reserve sucks, especially in NY where you have to cover three airports and commutability is just a daily punchline to a joke in crew resources.

So to each their own. Based off of PWA language, I think DAL will continue to see very junior NB captains especially in NY and UAL will continue to see junior WB FOs.

FL370esq

Just looked on iCrew. I think your guess is spot on. Probably won't go as junior as NYC due to the category being 1/3 the size but I bet the top 25% in SEA are way junior to the top 25% in NYC.

Next question to be answered in the great AE guessing game is - will they fill all 60 posted vacancies or are they hoping for X% of qualified pilots from SLC and NYC to bid in to fill them?

PilotWombat

Just wanted to throw this out there. I know the "pilots holding preference" function on iCrew is mostly useless, but it does seem to show the popularity of various categories. I'm towards the low end of the totem pole, and I see that there are only 20 people with SLC73NB as a #1, 2, or 3 bid. With all the waterfall vacancies I expect will open up, how many do you think will fall to new hires? What other spots go unexpectedly unfilled?

Planetrain

These would be me guesses on unfilled/available to new hires. IDK how many in each, but the most will be NYC.
NYC220B
NYC320B
NYC73NB
maybe DTW717B
maybe ATL717B
SEA220B

One caveat with being super junior and looking at prefs for #1,2,3... many pilots will put some “dream” or “stretch” bids in the first several spots. While it may look like there are relatively few gunning for SLC73NB, people that are awarded it might have (unrealistically) LAX350A, SEA330A, LAX7ERA for spots 1,2,3, all the while knowing they legitimately will only have bids # 14,15,16... as real contenders. As you become more and more system-senior, this crystal ball complication tends to fade out a little.

Obviously those that bid with %prefs will also wreck the crystal ball. You never know which pref might be their current category with % that effectively stop any further bid prefs.

Example: Current category ATL7ERB - 70%

Bid:
ATL350B 50% (unrealistic)
ATL330B 50% (unrealistic)
LAX350B 50% (unrealistic)
ATL7ERB 50% (possible, bidding would stop)
ATL350B 70% (unrealistic)
ATL330B 70% (unlikely)
ATL7ERB 70% (bidding would likely stop here)

Bids 1-3 very unlikely, but still shows in icrew “count” feature. Bid also has a bunch of prefs, but stops with current category.

(Example only.... didn’t hit the category lists super hard on this exercise to examine actual possibility)

crewdawg

This is me. When I got assigned 330B, I reentered my bids with Captain upgrades up to the 330. I had super high % bids in for 717A and 320A, knowing that would be years, if not a decade off. You can't win if you don't play.

It's fun to look at the "senior bidders" link but I've only found it useful back when we were running a bid every six weeks.