Philly

Might depend on how many guys jump on the SEA7ER and especially the SEA320 (rumored). That could suck up a lot of west coast commuters from the east coast. Of course it could also just make the east even more junior...guess we'll see. Good news these days though.

Philly

Razorback flyer

There have been a few surprises on the last bid with regard to seniority. Obviously SEA, SLC, and LA have gone and will likely remain fairly senior, probably due to the fact that there are more guys that live/commute from western cities than there are positions in western bases.
Wouldn’t think you can hold any of those until you have some numbers under you, much less out of class.

CVG is pretty junior right now on the bottom of the list, but I think that can be pinned on base closure paranoia - and will not likely hold through the next bid that closes the 767 ER base. The vast majority of pilots based here live here or near here, and it will likely get pretty senior when we go from having 500ish pilots to 250ish pilots.

DTW may actually go surprisingly senior. Many of the prospective displacements from CVG are talking about bidding big metal in DTW (its only a 3-5 hour drive from CVG metro to DTW airport, depending on where in CVG you live.) The majority of the (DTW) base commutes from what I hear (surprise!) but it seems like a decent place to commute to from a lot of places (and cheap to find a crashpad/hotel in,) and there is a fair amount of heavy metal up there. Also consider that the junior 9 driver in DTW is senior to the junior 9 driver in MSP. I wouldn’t rule it out as being available to new-hires.

ATL seems to be middle of the road. Many were predicting mass migration from the north to ATL on the last bid, but that didn’t seem to happen, despite a bid that lent itself to that possibility. It has been assigned out of class before (on a fairly regular basis,) but there were also some folks that were involuntarily displaced out of there on the August 09 bid (me being one of them.) That being said, it looks like anyone that wanted it back has been reinstated. Wouldn’t rule it out for newhires, but It might not happen that frequently.

MEM seems to be a little more senior that either DTW or MSP, but the junior pilot there is still only 66 from the bottom of the big list, and it was being handed out in training last go-around, from what I understand.

MSP seems to be a surprise on the junior side. In fact, they have the second most junior “bottom pilot” category at the company (Bottom 5 pilots are NYC M88, - #6 is MSP DC9) That could change with the DC9 displacements on the next bid. However, crew resources indicated that there would only be about 100 total additional displacements from the DC9 (50ish ca, 50ish FO.) There are projected to be about 100 crews (200 pilots) left in MSP after the current displacements (from Dec 11 bid) are complete - so the next displacement (May 2010 bid,) won’t close the category, even if MSP was the only base they displaced from. That displacement will likely be offset by an increase in the MD88 category to fund the incoming 90's. Also, the last displacement off the ‘9 was larger than the upcoming one, and pilots were still able to AE into the DC9.

I imagine non one would have troubles getting M88 NYC, though they are overstaffed as of right now (about 35% of the category is on reserve.) I don’t know if that is for the planned hub at LGA or for the bases’s conversion to a 90 qualified category (will likely happen on the May bid,) or both - or what effect the LGA deal falling through would have on it.

If I had to hazzard a guess as to what would be available in training, I would say (in order of most to least likely, biggest to smallest quantitity.) M88 NYC, DC9 MSP, DC9 DTW, DC9 MEM, M88 MSP, M88 ATL. Maybe 320 DTW/MSP, 737 NYC

Philly

I compiled a seniority by base from the projected category list to nail down base seniority for FOs which might be helpful in determining where new hires go. I couldn't just pick the plug as it could tell what I believe to be an erroneous story, so I picked 70% as the indicator. The hypothesis being that the plug may get into a category to be abused on reserve, but the lineholder is probably a better indicator. To that end, I just threw a dart to say that 70% is the number for the most junior lineholder as a generalization. I basically took 70% and applied it to the number of positions and came up with a number in category, took the seniority number of the guy in that resulting position and divided it by the total number on the list to give a % in the company. It can be skewed by very small categories, but hey that's seniority too, and it's just data. I don't hold this out as the end all be all of "how it is", but just data. Here's how it came out:

01. DTW744 38.8%
02. SEA330 50.6%
03. DTW777 51.4%
04. ATL777 52.5%
05. ATL765 54.1%
06. DTW330 58.1%
07. MSP330 59.6%
08. NYC765 63.9%
09. ATL7ER 67.5%
10. ATL767 69.9%
11. LAX7ER 70.2%
12. SLC767 74.0%
13. CVG7ER 75.5%
14. ATL73N 76.0%
15. MSP755 77.0%
16. SLC73N 78.3%
17. DTW755 78.9%
18. MEM320 82.2%
19. NYC7ER 84.3%
20. SLC320 85.1%
21. LAX73N 86.1%
22. CVG73N 87.6%
23. DTW320 87.8%
24. MSP320 89.7%
25. ATLM88 92.0%
26. NYC73N 96.2%
27. MSPM88 96.9%
28. DTWDC9 97.0%
29. MEMDC9 97.5%
30. MSPDC9 97.8%
31. CVGM88 98.0%
32. NYCM88 99.1%

YMMV...Philly

Denny Crane

Rumor has it that, on this next bid, there will be 120 SEA ER A's and 180 SEA ER B's. If this turns out to be true, it will do a lot to affect the seniority on the west coast.

Denny

Razorback flyer

Bid is out. I'm sure you can find a thorough discussion of it in a nearby thread. The gist:

Entire CVG ER category is closing (surprise!) as previously mentioned, this will likely make CVG a small, very senior narrow body base. The category had 113 of both ca and fo.

about 65 displacements off the 9 (roughly half ca/half fo) in BOTH DTW and MSP. They left MEM alone.

ATL grew on the 88 and a few 7ER ca spots

DTW grew slightly in just about every widebody category

I think LAX got a few 7ER fo spots too

MSP grew significantly on the 88 ca/fo, and a little on the 7ER fo

NYC got a few more 7ER fo spots

SEA 7ER category will open- about 120 ca and 160 fo's.


Nice work on the numbers, Philly! Very interesting to see that displayed like that.

satchip

Razorback, that's NYC ER Capt that grew 10 spots. FO was no change.

Cycle Pilot

So, a big question is... will the current junior bases stay the junior bases? I'm debating on staying on the -88 in NYC so I can hold a line more quickly. Which position do you think will give a junior person a line most quickly? I'm still thinking NYC M88. Am I wrong?

Denny Crane

If I had to guess, I say yours is a pretty good one.


Denny

Razorback flyer

My bad (but I don't mind being wrong about that!)

80ktsClamp

Seconded.

NYC 88 isnt half bad in the good weather with a crashpad near LGA. I used to stroll to the MAT or Hertz before each trip to get to where I needed to go. No cabs or anything.

Winter and rain... no thanks.