More flying in October
 

ExpressJet will launch its expanded United Express flying in October. In July, the airline announced that United Airlines had signed on for 20 CRJ200s, in addition to its fleet of more than 100 ERJ145s. 
The first four CRJs will enter service in early October, followed by another four aircraft in late October. The fleet will continue increasing until all 20 CRJs are in service by early 2019.
ExpressJet’s CRJ flying will be based out of ORD, with some routings also taking the fleet through IAD. The airline will support the CRJ fleet at its ORD, CLE, RIC and TYS maintenance locations.  
The addition of the CRJ to ExpressJet’s United Express fleet supports the airline’s strategy to strengthen its long-time partnership with United. In addition, ExpressJet pilots enjoy a direct path to United through the Pilot Career Path Program (CPP). The United CPP guarantees eligible ExpressJet pilots participation in United’s hiring process and, once accepted into the program, the expectation that they will become a United pilot. Through the program, United has committed to hiring a sizable portion of its new-hire pilots directly from ExpressJet. ACN

Fake News. Nobody is doing anything unless we can turn this net loss of pilots into a positive. Total net loss MTD 30 pilots including the 3 new hires in September so far.

How many pilots are needed to fly 20 CRJ200’s? 120? You don’t think 120 pilots will stick around and move to ORD?

180 at minimum, any lower than that and you will be cancelling flights.

UAL and Inc dithered too long. It will take a massive amount of recruiting to right this ship. I remember a year ago management bragging that we would be overstaffed for the flying they anticipated. Once again, they thought this was 2012 and pilots would hang out here in the hopes of getting a crumb. Now, we will be down to less than 200 LASA pilots left and they will all be needed to staff the CRJ ORD flying. Many of them will probably retire instead and have been holding out in hopes of getting the TYS base. The bonuses mentioned ($40K), may help. UAL purchasing us may help current employee morale but will do nothing to attract fresh blood without an upgraded CCP or flow, and I just don't see that happening until there is a crisis. That's how UAL rolls.
On the good side, upgrade times will probably be cut in half. Anyone hired will be flying their tail off.

Where are the CRJs coming from?

Inc. I'm not sure of all the tail numbers, but I think some were originally ASA airframes while some were SkyWest. I'm sure they're giving us their best airframes. :rolleyes:

I wonder what the already-commuting LASA vets are going to think of line bidding. Should have kept that PBS system, et al. for the ORD CRJs, in my opinion. But if they plan on 120-180 pilots, that may not have worked anyhow. That’s a lot of flying to be done.

120 pilots? Is that the kind of staffing LXJT runs with? That’s three crews per plane.

More like 5 crews per plane, minimum.