It's a huge confusing mess. Absent money from the feds, would we be flying the schedule we are? No company survives long running a money-losing operation, and we are still cash burn negative to this day, just not as bad as last spring. And even if mgmt had done the right thing and had conducted all the fleet groundings, VEOPs, displacements etc in the correct order (i.e. *NOT* trying to keep the FA union off the property), we'd still have a bunch of surplus pilots, just not in the bizarre way they are staffed now.

But there's so many "but consider this, and also that...." that no one (either of us included) can really make a firm statement. In fact, absent money from the feds I wonder if any domestic airlines would be flying at all right now.

I don’t see it being too much different unless they furloughed the full 2558 original WARN recipients. A large number went out on UNA in July, August, and September as it was. The biggest difference would have been on the A220 where eventual “affected” pilots got twisted around until the end of November.

Q4 earnings report on Thursday Jan 14 (tomorrow). That should provide insight into current cash burn. I believe the original target was to be "neutral" by winter; pretty sure that wasn't achievable.

Going to take at least 4-6 months for 90% vaccinations, and that's just in the US. That'll be at the end of the summer flying season.

Love the idea of full recalls and hiring new pilots; I'll settle for a viable business model that sees us intact through 2022, hopefully without bailouts being needed.

fully agree. I saw nothing in there indicating we're ready to ramp up to full capacity bring everyone back hire off the street. It's almost like they are admitting they were vastly understaffed in the years pre-Covid and are getting a team in place for WHEN we ramp up, whenever that will be

True, but between the early outs and UNAs we have as many Pilots not flying as DAL would have furloughed. The difference between this situation and previous thrill rides along our aviation career is that no Pilots were furloughed. A similar number of Pilots were taken off the line through the above mentioned programs.

UCAL with a much more comprehensive deal on the UNA side has all/most of there junior Pilots available and producing. Our management team either dropped the ball planning wise or had conflicting priorities which precluded a more operationally productive and flexible arrangement.

Absent the government money we would probably be in a similar situation manning wise but with zero VEOPs and UNAs and thousands of furloughs.

Scoop

Yes 20-04 putting affected pilots onto sometime similar to 20-03 no fly lines, but qualifying them to at least be able to pick up would have made sense. Could have helped when schedule crunches happen.

Except you glossed over this: At a minimum, that indicates they expect Affected Pilots will start to be recalled soon, some maybe for summer ‘21. Agree OTS hires are probably a year away best case though.

I too was surprised the company didn’t want any currency/“obligation” out of the affected pilots at all.

#240SUX

Thanks for the point out Trip.

Hope we get some back soon, although I'm still months away on training for my displacement from last May's displacement. Doubtful we can get very many ready anytime soon. Have a feeling it's going to be green sleep mania this summer.