I just flew with an FO who had contact with AA HR recently.

He was told in 2007, AA had 13,000 qualified applicants on file.
Now, in 2017, AA has 3,000 qualified applicants on file.

I am not drinking the koolaid or anything, but these numbers are based solely on sending 25 a month. It doesn't account for demand rising over the next few years or those leaving for other companies. I see the ALPA list as more of a worst case scenario in terms of the metering. Obviously world events and the like can change this.

I think the ALPA list does take into account normal attrition but I do agree with you to some extent. I just don't think we're going to see 'normal' in the next few years. There are a lot of guys coming into these new hire classes that are a lot older than usual for new hire regional classes and they're coming with significant aviation background beyond just CFI. I just don't see these kind of guys sitting around 6, 7, 8 years or whatever waiting on flow if United, Delta, FedEx, etc, would offer them a job at year 2 or 3 (or even American via off the street). So, yeah, they can meter. But I don't think it's really going to help them with staffing.

Two things:
1. The list does not take into account attrition, you are correct.
2. The list also does not take into account the fact that AA doesn't run classes in December and sometimes smaller classes in the summer.

I think flow will be on the shorter side of what is predicted by the union because of exactly what you said, but I also think that it's disingenuous for company mouthpieces to predict such a wildly different number when attrition is such an unknown variable.

Has American ever not slowed hiring in the summer. I'm serious. Let's look at the previous 5 years.

Have they slowed hiring this summer? At some point (very soon) the retirements at AA start happening so fast, they aren't going to be able to afford to slow down hiring, in the summer or in December.

time to flow to AA - quicker in future ?
 

+1 on disingenuous company mouthpieces /mouthing-feces / some throwing up metabolic waste.

Well, the July 11th class at AA had 41 new hires, and the upcoming July 25th class is projected to 42, for a total of 83 new hires this month. That's not a slowdown.

This is true, but they hired a lot less in June.

A year or more ago the ALPA spreadsheet had me flowing about 4 or 5 months quicker than I will actually end up going. If RW's numbers had been true each of the past 2 Januarys I would have already been at AA for a while, instead I have quite a ways to go.