Over at United
 

So their most recent bid closed and they had NB CA slots go unfilled in EWR, SFO and LAX! So every single pilot on their seniority list can now hold captain. Their contract prevents new hires from being captains so not sure what will happen next.

Their FOs probably have their December schedules by now too.

;)

But to get back on topic, it was 46 unfilled NB capt positions and 148 WB FOs.

I believe I read that you have to have 500 hours at UA and be off probation to be awarded CA there. And unlike here you actually have to be qualified on the date of the award to get it.

bottom 1,000 or so could not be awarded CA.

im guessing we would not have unfilled CA slots here because of those differences, but I’m not sure.

Not to mention, their reserve rules, which suck

I believe it is specifically their reserve rules on global fleets (757/767, 777, 787) that are bad.

Although airport standby does not sound like fun, and that’s all fleets (did it at the regionals and hated it, although I think UA has significant better rules about how it’s done)

There is a reason so many FOs bypass. Being really Jr is very bad QOL under the wrong work rule provisions. Mix in a high cost base with mostly commuters, bids go crazy junior. The same deterrents we have with NYC, United has + SFO and LAX.

Many of the most junior CA here bid knowing LC reserve they can sit at home as a commuter, with just a few shortcalls a month, no airport reserve, YS, no getting used before 10AM first day, etc etc. If we had UA reserve I'd only bid CA when I could hold a line. Shoot, I probably would be flying at another airline if we had that kind reserve. (Live 4 hours from base, 1.5 from OAL domicile.)

Gotta wonder what’s going on over in their crew programming office. Apparently this was a small cleanup bid to staff their WBs for next summer. There is a NB one coming down to staff for NB deliveries. If they don’t blink, ALPA has some serious section 6 leverage over there right now.

other than FSB (which I believe pays 1 he on top of guarantee), what about their system is so bad?

i think most people complain about the ability to get days off rolled on the WB, the short call lottery-there are no real restrictions on how many short calls can be given. Personally, (live in domicile on a WB) it doesn’t bother me. After two unused short calls or FSB, you one hour of pay for every unused SC or FSB (somewhat of a simplification, but that’s the basic idea.)

my personal ideas on how to make it better: require short calls or FSB be built by 10am for the next day, so a commuter can see them and make plans. Have 1 or 2 more days off per month on the WB to account for the fact that you can days off rolled. Limit the amount of times per year or every 12 months.

commuting to reserve is always difficult, which is probably why you see unfilled CA vacancies.

thanks for the insight. I knew the WB days off issue, but just did know why NB reserve rules would be considered unusually bad.

no limit to SC would suck for a commuter, but an hour above guarantee for all but the first two would make it slightly better.

Another limitation is we cannot bid more than 6 days of reserve in a row. My understanding is this is allowed at delta. Not sure how you handle duty time limits, but apparently you have figured it out while we have not.

For the most part, We can bid as many days in a row as our seniority allows. If we exceed a 30/7 limit we are placed into rest by CS. Honestly this is a great deal if you don’t mind longer stretches of work. The company gets extra flexibility and we get another day or 2 off for rest if we bid that way.

So you end having rest days on what were reserve days? And they don’t add more reserve days? That’s a good set up. Can they roll days off like they can for us?

Nope no extra days added. Nope we have "gold" days off that they technically can't touch us on. We can place them on our schedule as we please

yes, if our reserve bid causes us to be put into rest we just get those days off.

im not sure of the specifics of how being worked into a day off works, but when we get our reserve schedule, we are awarded regular days off (X days) and then bid for 6 golden days. If I understand right, they can fly us into an Xday (with some pay implications that I’m not sure about) but they cannot fly us into a golden day.

Sometimes our ‘rest’ day is a 30-hour layover in an undesirable location

Essentially as a commuter, having every day be SC or an assignment. From what I hear from UA, if you commute your strategy is to avoid reserve at all costs. Thats why CA went so Jr, and thats why WB FO did as well (reserve for years).

If you commute but can do Long Call from home, life is pretty nice here. Could it be better? Of course. But I bid reserve by choice most months with my commute. My category/seat last month had everyone 70% or greater holding lines, involuntarily. Most months don't look like that, but just shows reserve doesn't have to be this avoid at all costs thing. Lots of people prefer it.

Just for clarity, you CAN be rerouted into the 6 “Golden” X-days (days off), but it’s way down the coverage ladder, and the company must make every reasonable attempt to find someone else for that reroute. But it’s not inviolable.

The true value in Golden X-days come from automatic release at noon if not already used on last day of reserve going into a Golden day. It also makes Short Call on said day very short in duration, if not unusable for SC.

Minor note, and I only post it because many don't know this. We can ALMOST place them on our schedules as we please. You can only put them in 3 different off day blocks, which is supposedly a "system limitation." As someone who usually has more than 3 off day blocks, I find this a bit ridiculous. Also, golden days have to start on a off day immediately following a reserve day. Thats ok, if you're happy with your schedule, but not great if you plan on moving reserve days. Since we can't move golden days, if you move reserve days over one, it's simply lost.

But really golden days are kind of silly. Every off day should be a golden day, and we should never have to worry about being worked into an off day. That said, I've never really been worked into an off day, though I know it occasionally happens. As Fangs mentioned, the true value is the automatic noon release on the last day of a reserve block.

Impressed that the new hires at United understand that they might be a captain in 6 months, but they'll be on the bottom of the reserve pool for a decade as the senior pilots continually bid above them.

Wonder if they're hiring mostly civilian track pilots who've already lived this?

My class back in June was about 50/50 MIL/Civilian. That’s the ratio that’s seemed to have stuck during our current hiring spree. There’s a really good mentor program here that I know has been helpful for all the new hires to not make bad decisions based off limited data or experience.

Has a US major airline had unfilled captain spots before? I can’t remember any, but I haven’t been around as long as some.

AA had it with the e190

Important to note this! Used to think rolling thunder was the shiz (and it is on 15th each month!) but have gotten bitten by the 5 day with a 30 hour layover followed by a 3 or a 4 day with min rest at home. Do not like! Doubly so if you have young kids at home.

they won’t be a captain in 6 months. They are not eligible until off probation. Which takes a year.

Not saying that isn't accurate, but many airlines don't allow probationary Captains but still allow someone on probation to be awarded Captain and then be off probation to "get around" that. Not sure how UAL does it though,

Yeah I don’t know the ins and outs of when you have to be off probation to be awarded a capt slot, but I doubt we will have anyone with 6 months operating as a capt. I could see how maybe someone around 8 months gets an award because the vacancies are 3-4 months out. But by the time they hit the line they won’t be on probation any more.

UA does not have that carve out like we do. Over there you have to finish probation before upgrade. You also need 500 hours at UA, regardless of previous flying experience.

I think what gloopy was speaking to is a clause at DL. CAs can’t be on probation, at delta if you are awarded upgrade before you are off probation you are allowed to upgrade and passing upgrade training gets you off probation, even if you have not met the other requirements.

Apologies, and thanks for the correction. (I'm not United. Well, not until we merge into some sort of super airline when re-regulation comes back :) )

Should've wrote : "the most junior eligible pilots".

We run vacancy bids every other month and pilots can expect training within the next three months after awarded a new position therefore the pilot must have the prerequisites prior to being awarded versus the large annual bids you guys run where training could be 8-12 months from the award. Not saying either way is better but explaining the rationale behind the requirement here at UAL. The fact that we are even having this discussion one year after narrowly missing thousands of furloughs is entertaining to say the least. I have whiplash….

Do you guys get to bid on your training schedule?

if you mean on when we go to transition training, not really, we can ask to go after or before a certain date, but nothing is guaranteed. If you mean sim times, no. We do bid for recurrent training tho.

Reserve isn't that bad at UA. Im narrowbody right now in right seat in NYC. Some guy like to complain about everything. We have senior guys that are able to bid Widebody because of the size of our widebody fleet. We're just built differently. (widebodies) Next summers international flying is historic which is good for the senior guys.

May I ask what approx. DOH hire applies wide body captain (real wide body like 787/777)? Just curious if the vacant NB captain bids correlate in any fashion to juniority on the WB side of the house.

Over here, the lamest wide body trip beats typical domestic. So if you are the recipient of what's handed out to reserves, the QOL is pretty decent once you are out flying. Bottom line is that a junior wide body pilot is not living in misery once flying assignments are made.

Oh we all know which way is better - our 12 month put your life on hold for 1 year method sucks! :eek:

Scoop

fully agree. I also think requiring 1 full year and 500 hours at Delta would be a good idea.

from what I saw posted over there, probation pilots cannot bid a CA position, and you are not off probation until 1 year of service, no exceptions.

While this is something that will resolve itself the vast majority of the time (with extremely rare, very isolated, very limited exceptions) if we implimented a policy like you are advocating then we would have to either pull down block hours and cancel flights or junior assign to CA positions for those meeting the 500/1 "company minumims".

The very rare couple of unicorns a few years ago when the entire pilot group was running around saying "I can hold Captain!" because 2 probies briefly got NYC88A awards was enough to get the tiger teams to pay attention. They were planning longer OE and other things, but just as quickly as it happened it was over so I suspect those efforts were at best backburnered or at worst scrapped.

But in any case, the only reason A positions would go to first year pilots is if no one else bid them. To change the possibly of someone under 500/1 from getting it would take other measures that would have their own negative effects. Not sure what the right answer for this is FWIW.

or… they can post those unfilled positions in a base that can get upgrades. Or they can improve reserve QOL to make upgrading more desirable.

UA cannot force upgrades and I don’t see them pulling back hours after 46 CA slots went unfilled.

I understand what you are saying, I just think there should be a point where the company has to stop and not award a CA position to someone brand new to DL.


on the flip side of this argument, I think new hires should be able to break their seat lock to move up to a WB B position if their seniority allows (which is currently not the case here, unlike UA)

They also had 157 unfilled 777/787 FO positions. The capt positions might be filled next month or in a coupla months with another bid. I know they train pretty quickly, but I know of a few Capt's still awaiting training after 4 months and still not scheduled. Or, they just overman other, more senior bases and start/end with DH. Or, they just build the rotation to be covered by other bases from start to finish with more scheduled block hours (shift of flying). I feel certain, that their mgt will figure it out and/or just not expand the flying as rapidly. Hardly a crisis. OBTW, do they still add the "homily" during the interview of "We hire Captains at Delta"? It's not like the pilots we hire aren't well qualified....same for UAL and AA