17,000+ !!
 

As of today’s MEC update we’ve crossed 17,000. Unbelievable. Considering what we were potentially looking at when Covid first happened(before Salary guarantees, etc), this is great. Let’s hope the good times keep rolling. On to 20K!

IIRC they said we would be a ~9,800 pilot airline in the summer 2020 staffing news.

We won't be at 20k if we stay at 1100/yr.

At 1,100 a year with 500ish retirements per year we could hit 20k by 2030. Theoretically

I believe they’ve stated 4%ish growth /year. 4% of 17,000 is just shy of 700 pilots. Add in 400 or so retirements and you get to the 1,100 number they’ve stated they’d like to hire in 2024.

So we’ll say for arguments sake that we’re roughly 18,000 pilots by the end of 2024. Add roughly another 700 (assuming 4% growth) plus retirements and you’re starting to get close to 19,000. Extrapolate that out over a couple more years and we could (emphasis on could) be at about 20,000 pilots by 2028.

Yeah, theoretically, you're probably right. But, let me say what I really wanted to say first...I don't think we get close to 20k. Delta, and Ed more specifically, has never been pre-occupied with the desire to the biggest carrier. Given our track record of "smart" growth, ie slow, intentional growth, if the day comes we reach 20k it's much farther out than 2030ish.

Just my uninformed reading of the tea leaves.

I'd rather be the most profitable rather than the biggest, given the choice.

While I agree, being amongst the biggest is better than “shrinking into more profitability.”

It appears that Spirit is in a deep spin right now and the whole ULCC model is facing an existential crisis. I think there will soon be a lot of room for US4+ to grow.

I hate to be Debbie Downer but consider this; the day before 9-11-2001 Delta had 10,400 pilots and NWA had 7,500.

Together that's 17,900 pilots, in 2001! That's 23 years ago! That's NOT "Growth"!

We still have not recovered from 9-11 and the contract concessions we gave up in Bankruptcy.

We gave away scope on both ends, and we gave Korean Airlines the Narita hub, that's why we have less pilots today than in 2001.

We gave management PBS, which allows them to staff the Airline with 20% fewer pilots than the fixed 75hr cap we had before bankruptcy.

We are still being paid 20% less than our wages in 2001 adjusted for inflation.

Without pensions too…