I’ve been told Widget Seniority is a great tool for predicting seniority projections; though to my understanding it doesn’t account for growth or any other unpredictable metric such as medical outs, early retire, etc..
With 300+ aircraft over next 2-3 years + hiring growth, what’s a WAG on upgrade time stagnating, growing senior, or drifting junior?

 

Fangs have covered this pretty extensively so hopefully he chimes in. The plug in the left seat has sat around the 80-85% global seniority.

 

Fangs info is very well done and analytical. Tho, prediction wise to include hiring growth/deliveries could that mean that 80-85% inches more junior, senior, stagnate maybe? Especially over the next 2-3 years

 

With less hiring it'll take longer to reach 80-85%. Plug pilot was gaining nearly 1% a month during peak hiring 2022/23.

 

That makes sense.. Though I wonder once the majority of the NB’s & WB’s (maybe the additional 20 350-1000’s) will drop NB A into the 88-90 percentile? My surface level knowledge tells me more planes + more pilots would result NB A dropping lil’ more junior, but I have no idea what it’ll look like in reality

 

My guess is 5-10 years for someone not already on the list today and increasing.

 

The 5 makes sense, but how could it be increasing? How does A get further senior with deliveries & growth over 2-3 years?

 

I'll add that historically that plug has been in NYC. Historical NBA positions outside of NYC have been significantly more senior.

 

lots of those deliveries will replace current planes.

We are hiring a lot less than in the recent past. For example, in 2022 we started the year with 13,000 ish pilots and hired about 2,400. put another way the first 2022 hire was 84% by the end of 2022. We now have 17,300 pilots and plan to hire around 1,000 next year, or about 6% of our list.

the last few years have also seen unprecedented overtime opportunities with a little seniority. Why would I subject myself to be a junior CA when I can get a 3 day GS reliably every month and make CA money while keeping my flexibility as an FO? That seems to be changing and overtime opportunities are not nearly as plentiful as they were back when upgrades were going under a year.

Just my opinion…I think a lot of more senior NB FOs will pull the trigger on upgrading in the next year or 2. The incentive to upgrade seems to be getting more and these pilots will still enjoy some schedule flexibility in the left seat with all the 2022 hires who took the first upgrade junior to them.

There will still be movement, but it probably won’t be crazy like the last couple years.

 

I mean, this statement isn't really true. If a 10,000 pilot airline takes 85% to hold NB-A, and that same airline grows steadily to 20k, then the percentage to hold won't really change that much. The key is the rate of growth. As we saw during the post-covid boom that rapid expansion caused CA positions to drop to basically anyone on property. As the expansion slowed, it has shifted back to the more normal 80-85% range. If/when growth ever slows to a crawl then upgrade would go even more senior.

And as was said above just looking at the company-wide junior A really misses the mark for a lot of people. Being the plug in any NB-A category is going to have a lot of downsides, especially if you commute. Lots of bases take more time to be the plug, and of course it takes even more time to move to a point where you've got some semblance of schedule control. Everyone's family/life/financial situation is going to vary, so each person has to decide what moves make the most sense for them. That is one of the great things about a company this size - there are so many different options in how to "build" your career that is isn't that hard to find a sweet spot that works for you.