A little economic meltdown in 08/09 which caused marketing to pull our schedule and block hours way down. They also reduced overlap from the merger and closed one hub and essentially closed another. Less block hours equals less pilots. They made a decision not to furlough those pilots but like any surplus they move it to the copilot seats. That is why over the last few years the Captains categories have been much more stable then the copilot categories and since the contract was signed every single bid has added new captains slots. The last 3 trips I flew at least one copilot held a captains bid. Its nice to see and has been a long time coming.

 

What drove the hiring in 2010?

 

Service starts in May

DL2579 SEA-JNU 1845-2010

DL2578 JNU-SEA 0630-0940

 

I haven't read the other couple new-hire threads in a few weeks. My understanding is Nov/Dec/Jan classes will be all furlough returns, then some mix of flows and off the street hires, does anyone know a good time frame for when the first new hires hit the line? I'm thinking Feb start, 2 weeks indoc, 5 weeks training, 1 week OE, so 8 weeks... maybe April Fools Day?

Any fidelity on this sailing, or info on how furlough returns are doing? Talking about returning or new guys is something we can all agree on!

 

Guys, keep in mind that with smaller and more frequent AEs, there will be smaller pin action and movement will be localized. Remember that there were no displacements, a handful of reinstatements and at least there was some backfilling on the ER (as opposed to none recently) with openings on it to come next bid. None of that is bad.

Most lucrative seniority position for movement appears to be around the 5000-7500 range for bids these days. The 320 making it down to 8000 is pretty amazing, but not as surprising given how junior positions in NYC typically go.

While ho-hum, it's sure better than the ginormous advanced displacements that we were still having a year ago.

 

My understanding is that noobs will be in the first class in January.

Newhire OE is 40 hours, so that's at least a pair of 4-day trips.

There should be one more recall class this month (one just started on Monday). My neighbor is in the one that just started- they are being told they will have plenty of time to chill, and probably end up having to do refreshers before they get to OE on the 717.

 

Follow up on post by Buzz, flew a 900 last week.
Generally I was impressed! Plane seemed much more stable about the pitch axis than the 800, and seemed very "smooth" to fly. Hand flew it a lot, liked it. The roll trim and rudder trim were spot on, no need to mess with those at all. Power at TO seemed decent, and we did both 5 and 1 flaps TOs. I was gonna post my "Pitch Awareness Report" from my first TO, 2.03 pitch rate lol... guess that dang report did me some good!

Airco seemed to hold temps better than the 800, I was able to quickly set (there were already FO temp cheater lines penciled in!) and forget. And it appears there is not a cold spot at row 10 anymore, it has moved aft to around row 17 which makes some sense.

Luggage in cockpit-- seemed the height of the luggage spot was and inch more, maybe, we had no issue rolling two in there. However, I would NOT want to put my bag in that closet behind first class we're supposed to, as a commuter!

Landed decently, I ran the power a bit longer than I might as I didn't want to be the first scrapee. Working the new FMS panel with VNAV button and Fix moved, and no climb/cruise/descent buttons, was a pain at first, but should get used to it.

Flight att told me the aisle was narrower, and harder to roll your bag down, I didn't try though. And they were telling customers the new bins didn't hold as much, which isn't how I understand it, but they were ready to start checking bags at 50% full as they thought the bins were smaller (first time for them too).

In all, though I didn't like flying halfway across the country at 300, it seemed like a nice plane.

 

They don't need to backfill the NB's out west since the few slots they had open were filled by furlough bypass guys

 

I don't remember much (if anything) in the way of west coast slots being offered to FUR guys.

They were not offered anything that wasn't previously offered to us.

 

They were offered LAX, SLC, and MSP slots. I know pilots displaced from SLC and MSP trying to get back and I know pilots that have been trying to get to LA for years. Your statement is inaccurate. It is a huge sore spot for some of our pilots.