Originally Posted by The701Express

Something to consider with regards to the timing of hiring restarting is the lag from when the process begins to when the pilot starts indoc and even completes IOE. The background check process in the past has been notoriously slow for applicants, taking months to complete. We could see a six to nine month lag between the hiring window opening until pilots are in training or flying the line. If hiring does restart in Q1 2021, that would likely be for staffing as late as the end of the year, which coincides with Robin's forecast for a return to 2019 capacity. Add in the classes that were sent home during training to prime the pump before then and I don't see it as overly optimistic that we could be hiring next year. That's of course with the giant caveat that the current demand trend continues.

On a related note, in his last couple of appearances on CNBC, Robin has been pretty coy when asked about daily cash burn, seeming to hesitate a bit before only referencing the guidance provided in the Q2 earnings call. That could very well just be Robin being Robin, but given all of the new route additions and talk about hopeful signs in future bookings, I'm really curious to hear an update on those numbers during the Q3 earnings call next month. If the new network changes are helping bring cash burn back to neutral, I think the odds of accelerating deliveries increases. There are just too many new routes that were announced in this latest batch like LAX-CHS and RIC-LAS that are textbook A220 routes that I'm sure the company doesn't want to waste committing a 320 to service the route for long.

Whichever airline gets back to neutral cash burn first will get a lot of love from Wall Street and in return will have quite a bit of leeway in their strategic decision making.

And since I'm here, I might as well make a prediction for OTF. I'm going to go with a push to get employees reinvested in the health and future of the company with a campaign to "Own The Franchise".

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Originally Posted by seekingblue

System chief pilot just suggested in his weekly email we are going to move toward 5,000 pilots. Is this a case of 5,000 pilots in 5 years+, or is he hinting we will be hiring sooner than anyone expects?

Originally Posted by JackieChan

We are still taking aircraft that we’ll need to staff. It is exciting to hear talk of growth again but I’m not reading to far into it.

Originally Posted by rtrhead

I sure hope they get some 190s flying. I'm at 91 hours YTD and haven't flown a plane since March...

Originally Posted by CaptCoolHand

There's a lot of cards in motion right now. The 220 coming online, SQ flying, and the AA code share that could bring most of the 190s back from storage. Assuming an uptick in traffic I don't see why we wouldn't need more bodies by the second half of the year.

Of course it could tank the other direction again too then we're all F'ed.