we are still expecting to take deliveries till end of next year per last earnings call. If we did not hire and kept the same amount of pilots till end of next year we would have a pilot to plane ratio of 9.7 which is insanely low. Factor in maybe 100-200 people leaving between now and then due to 5,000 plus hires projected by AA and UA next year and I think we are in decent shape.

just take a breath and see if earnings falls within guidance…

 

looking at number of departures significantly reduced 15% over the last year. Which is significantly down. I do not expect them to keep the aircraft but instead sell the aircraft after delivery.

 

Where are you getting this data?

 

FFTpilots.com it’s unofficial. But if you look at top 15 departures for 2024 versus 2025 it’s mighty shocking.


month | 2024 | 2025 | difference | % change YoY

may | 12,881 | 11,530 | -1351 | -10.48%
june | 13,540 | 11,803 |-1,737 | -12.82%
july | 13,787 | 11,924 |-1863 | -13.5%



Now it could be they’re making this up with newer destinations. But I doubt it. We are constantly told we are overstaffed. This shows not only do we have less departures than we did the previous year. 10% less at minimum. Which would not only mean all the new guys are redundant but so are many of the people hired last year.


At add insult to injury we haven’t had any filings which equate this reduction in aircraft utilization with increased profit. We have people being paid who don’t have places to fly to. I imagine many of these flight attendants hired are also being underutilized because of the current over staffing. More planes isn’t the solution when you have people not being utilized. The problem is we’ve made an experience so cheap that it isn’t worth the price of admission. We don’t have repeat customers to build frequency from many city pairings.


the solution is change top down. Or realistically. Start paying your face of the company the gate agents and increase the standards required for the position. No more yoga pants. Put them in Pant suits that are uniform and pay people to manage the gate agents and operations at hubs and out stations.

Correct the image problem and you maybe can save the company.


But you have a moral problem of people who are working the same job as other carriers but for less income because of mismanagement at the top.


canary in the coal mine is the 5 years of maybe this year we’ll hit profit while our peers like jetBlue and Spirit fail to bring in their usual margins.

we are a dying model.

we are a dying model.

Investment at this stage is likely too late and two wrongs don’t make a right. Meaning a merger with another failing business just hastens our fuel burn to bingo.

 

See, This is where its confusing, because of all this data you posted, we should be all sitting around with 70hr lines and not getting paid? Meanwhile premium out the whazoo, reserves getting used every day and doing 55+hrs a month, and plenty of lines.

 

I sat on short call in July and got called a whole 0 times!

 

Im jealous... Everyone I know and the bases I looked at, all the CAs were getting used like 45-70hrs a month.

Must be an FO thing I guess.

 

100% correct. Honey the Badger is never going into service for us

 

You mean aircraft 671? The one that flew passengers for the first time today? Yeah it's already in service...

 

nope...at least not if you are a DEN FO. used almost every single day.