Looking for updated 2016 numbers for Delta, United, FedEx, JetBlue, and Alaska. Please include number of pilots on the seniority list.

Thanks!

 

Bump- I would like to see how reality compares to the predictions.

 

Many or most of them will have their hands forced when they run out of people to swing their gear. The smart ones are moving now, while they can get ahead of the seniority wave. Gonna suck to get ripped out of their cushy lives to sit reserve in JFK at age 59. At least it will pay good .

 

Actually this entirely misses an extremely important point. If an airline needs to shrink then the amount of mandatory retirements can prevent or mitagate furloughs from happening at all, keep you working, and prevent a deterioration of QOL. An airline can do the shrink job on the group through mandatory retirements.

It's the most powerful insurance policy there is for a possible shrink job.

Either way a high percentage of impending mandatory retirements is a very good thing...shrinkage or not.

 

A new hire in 2021 will have 10k pilots in front of him retire in the course of 20 years. I would not call that a stagnant career. Even the low points are 400 pilots retiring per year.

 

Does anybody have some numbers on Hawaiian?

 

 

Notice the American graph goes to 1200. Lotso of retirements here, but............. Delta is the place to be. Our union couldn't find their own butts with GPS AND inertial nav. Go to Delta if you have the choice, American is still a decent second. Good equipment, good gals and guys to fly with, and we may not be the best, but we're the biggest.

 

What I don't understand is how to interpret these retirement numbers and their relationship to recent hiring.

I'm looking to get hired early in 2018. Using APC numbers from 2018 to 2032, DAL's mandatory retirement total is 8,888. AA's is 11,159, which is higher both in absolute terms and as a % of pilots. On top of that, AA has not ramped up hiring yet, while DAL has added thousands (~4000?) in just the last few years.

Why have these two carriers approached this so differently? And the practical question for those starting their airline career--given that DAL appears to have tried to get ahead of the retirements, is a DAL new hire looking at big slowing in hiring ("only" a few thousand in 15 years) and therefore less movement, while an AA new hire will benefit from a lengthy sustained hiring boom?

The answer seems to be an obvious yes, but it's common to see people talk about the AA retirements... But rare to hear anyone warning against going to DAL due to upcoming stagnation. Am I missing something?

 

I think AA didn't hire as much as DL over the last few years because AA had about 1000 pilots on furlough that were bypassing recall. It wasn't until last year that they had a firm number on how many of them were returning. We've been hiring at a pretty good pace since then. Add in displacements in PHX, 767 fleet shrinking, and MD-80 fleet going away and there are a lot of training events going on. We also just recently got on a single seniority list and people bidding other bases/equipment. They've also been moving planes around, such as 777 downsizing in LAX and 787 increasing.