Any educated guesses as to what will be available to new hires in January February? Has ATL been available historically?

 

ATL? Very possible

717? Almost guaranteed

320/737/7ER? Mix. One of these may not even be on the drop at all

WB FO? Not a snowball's chance in hell

 

Before we hire there will need to be a bid run with a large number of FO positions (since new hires can only be assigned unbid positions from the most recent bid). My guess is there is a lot of pent up demand for people on property to make moves since very few FO positions have been available for the entire second half of the year. Given that fact it makes sense that most people moving will be doing so either out of NYC or off the 717 in both DTW and ATL. Thus I’d expect a heavy dose of NYC 737/320/220, with a mix of ATL/DTW 717. There could still be a smattering of positions offered in other bases, but probably mostly the 220 in SEA and SLC.

Edit: I just reread my post and realized that what I laid out is basically how’s is always been for new hires. Heavy NYC with a smattering of other bases. I expect next year to be no different. You’ll never see a new hire drop with 50%+ west coast offerings.

 

Since you mentioned it, ballpark how long does it take folks to get WB FO?

 

The last class of Mar was 75% West Coast.. but that was probably an anomaly. Super heavy on SLC 220s

 

Yes the 220 has upended things a bit since that tends to be more junior as SEA and SLC 220 pilots bid off to the 737/320 in the same base to chase the higher pay rate.

 

WB FO plug is currently ~70% system wide. So ball park is 10 years as of right now.

 

Longer than NB CA, specially in ATL. I'm an ATL NB CA early post COVID hire. There's 5x more NB CA's junior to me than there are WB FO's. It trends very senior. Gross ballpark assuming 12k ish to be the plug and you getting hired tomorrow near 17,500.... I'd say close to a decade*

*Assuming only 500 retirements a year worth of movement

 

To add to above, historically, with monthly bids, so long as you get on equipment in ATL (not 220). You will very likely be able to switch bases fairly quickly. No promises, but expect a couple months.

 

Jan and Feb maybe, but just for the lurkers, if they decide to shut down airing by April again this year, those last few classes will end up stuck where they are until it starts again with the way these non hiring month monthly AEs have been treating folks.