Denver
 

As a new hire, how long to hold a line in DEN? Can one get reserve in DEN right out of training?

The June awards haven’t been published yet, but the most junior line holder for May was an August ‘18 hire. I would expect that to come down a bit as pre-covid flying gets fully restored. The most Junior DEN FO is a March ‘20 hire (the last class before the world blew up). You should be able to hold any base pretty quickly if you aren’t able to get it in training. Full disclosure though... with opening new bases, the initial staffing will usually come from other bases. Denver traditionally being the hardest hit on the junior end. Denver downsizing has been talked about for a long time and it’s yet to be known if the crew positions pulled from Denver over the past year will be restored. So, if you have your heart set on Denver, be prepared for some turbulence in your relative base seniority and the possibility of being displaced to another base until you are senior enough to bid back. Also, the future is never written in stone, don’t plan on upgrading in Denver unless you plan to voluntarily stay in the right seat for 15+ years.

Thank you for the info, very helpful.

How is the Denver base looking now? I keep hearing about contraction/downsizing. I have an offer to interview, live in Denver (and don’t plan on leaving). Any current thoughts on how long to hold DEN, and what the future might hold for the base in general?

Nothing has changed in the last 3 months regarding Denver.

It’ll taken a good 16 years to be able to be DEN Captain on RSV.

If you are cool being a DEN FO, it's great. You'll move up, the flying is good, the base is large, life is good. But, upgrade time in DEN is measured in astronomical units.

Isn't that a unit of distance not time? ;)

If you get hired today, and wait for a DEN upgrade you will fly at least 5.5 million miles in the right seat before you upgrade.

That's the distance to the moon and back 10 times

I will say with the “Covid Gap” year it could be a while to get to DEN out of training. There’s guys towards the top of the 3/2020 class that haven’t been able to hold DEN yet. I know there was a big gap in time but it’s still a little bit of a back log in seniority. I’d guess it could take over a year at this point.