current agreement is: 400 hours or 1 year to get off probation, whichever is first.

 

Their seat lock system is also very different so you we can’t use that as excuse like here. There just seems to be a distinct shift away from shiny jet or 4 stripe syndrome to QoL. Our wart is NB trip construction. But even with that I don’t see Capt spots going unfilled here. I can’t imagine what UAL is thinking right now. They base positions on available training and required demand. Now they have holes and unused training slots. That’s a huge waste. Almost as big of a waste as displacing thousands and letting them go unqualified to then award them a new airplane and then another and train on both.

 

but you do not need to be off probation to be awarded CA at DL, which you do at UA and which I am a fan of for here.

 

A few years ago our guys (UAL) were lamenting Delta pilots being able to upgrade within two years and saying things like “I’ve been here over a decade and can’t hold captain”. Now, due to a once in a two decade turn of events, there are a ton of NB captain slots to be filled and the common phrase of the day is “yeah, but not in SFO”, or “not if I have to commute and or sit reserve “. It’s a once in a career shortage that will work itself out. My guess, next vacancy will have a ton of Mid Continent (ORD/DEN/IAH) NB captain vacancies (those are the senior bases for 320/737)and the company will absorb the cost to flow flying through the other hubs to a greater degree than they already do today with new hires going into the 777/787 to fix that issue. It’s not quite as great of opportunity to exert leverage as many would like. Our section 20 (scheduling) for the new contract has supposedly been agreed upon months and months ago. This might speed up the pace of the outstanding items to get towards a TA by late Spring of next year but I have no inside knowledge and am just taking a guess here.

 

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Talking to a buddy at JB, they have a mechanism in place that allows them to bid more than 6 reserve days in a row up to all their reserve days in a row. And if a pilot is on long call reserve the 30 hours free from duty can end up being 44 hours free from release due to the 30 hours then their 14 hours callout. Can't have extras days added.

I inquired about this. According to my buddy, a line holder can have the 30 hours on a layover if max consecutive duty days were waived. For a reserve pilot, the 30 hours has to happen in domicile.

 

I think new hires should get the "golden ticket" back. We gave that away to get the buddy bid trip drops back at the time. We managed to staff just as well as we do now with the golden ticket still in place and if we brought it back it would eliminate this concern altogether.

 

what is/was a “golden ticket”?

 

DL had it for a long time. NH's would get an assignment based on "the drop" in class. They would then train with no freeze and could bid anything on the next AE. It was traded away to recapture OE trip drops. I say we should have both.

Yay for the triple dipping millionaires (slight hyperbole but it has happened) but we shouldn't sandbag new hires to get it

 

we just did that for all the UNAs, so it can be done. I agree you should either get hired with no seat lock, or be able to move up to bigger and better without regards to your NH seat lock.

 

bump.

This was posted over on the UAL forum about their bid that just closed in the past few days

“1,241 total bids not filled
133 unfilled CAPTAIN bids in LAX, SFO, DCA, EWR.
170 unfilled 777/787 FO in SFO, DCA, EWR
2 year Captains in DEN (used to be 2 years just to get FO in Denver)

Another bid supposed to be out in January or February.
New hires to likely be awarded 787/777 FO in new hire training.
Everyone with 500 hours on property and off probation can hold Captain.”

Not saying things are not good here at DL by any stretch but WOW!

if we are supposed to hire 4,000 pilots in the next 2-3 years I think it might only be a matter of time before crazy things like this start happening here.

crazy world