FlyyGuyy

Nobody knows right now. Too much is up in the air. But we have nearly 200 bypassing now.

WhiteMorpheus

Possibly less if you're comfortable and feel ready to move to the left seat. An April 2017 new hire was/is in one of the recent upgrade classes.

Upntheair27

Latest award shows two people from Aug 2017 that were awarded captain.

AboveAndBeyond

Here's a prediction...

January upgrade classes will go fairly senior as many have been waiting until after the holidays to upgrade.

Shortly thereafter, there will be a new captain incentive or "Endeavor-like" pay rates that will cause everyone to want to upgrade and it will stay senior. There will be FOs that had bypassed that regret bypassing because they are stuck as FOs and can't hold upgrade and they will complain. With improved reserve rules, reserve life of a captain will be pretty good.

This happened here not long ago and is being set up to happen again.

Like my grandma always said... "You can't steal in slow motion". Getting a 3 month upgrade is stealing (in a good way). Grab it and get the PIC time.

Ski Bird

Cool, thanks.

chrisreedrules

I agree with this.

blackhawk88

I'm relatively new to PSA, but at my old place we'd have a system bid every year. If there are only so many spots for CA positions, wouldn't some junior CAs get displaced back into FO positions if more senior FOs begin to bid CA positions? Just curious if that's how it works here....

PSA Recruiter

It is interesting to see what we at PSA consider to be "senior".

During interviews, we will talk about CLT being a "senior" base and it can take a month or two after completing training to hold CLT on occasion, when other times you can hold it immediately, depending on the timing.

Or how CLT is a "senior" base and people usually have to spend 5-6 months on reserve, where they can spend 1-2 months on reserve in DAY/CVG/DCA (or less, depending on timing).

Then, one of the people in the interview group will make a comment that he/she has been with their airline for 8 years and can't hold a certain base, or that they have reserve times of several years. That puts things into perspective very quickly.

It is easy to start thinking about things getting really bad and upgrade time increases from 3 months to 9-12 months, but it is funny to think that a 9-12 month upgrade is really considered it going "senior".

I agree that upgrade time will likely go up from the current state of 3-4 months with this last upgrade. I presented about PSA three times yesterday during a job fair in Daytona Beach, and told the group each time that upgrade time will almost certainly increase in January. We had over 300 upgrades in 2017, and although no one is making any promises for the future, I can't see them slowing down anytime soon. We have 2 open seats for new hire classes for the rest of 2017 with waitlists for most classes. Full new hire classes usually means lots of upgrades.

PSA Recruiter

We have a yearly system bid (July? maybe). But no, CA's are not displaced back to FO. You are not downgraded because of a bid. The idea of the system bid is that if we are not hiring and not having base bids every 2 or so weeks like we have now, it would be a guaranteed bid each year where people could move bases if they want to. It does not forcibly displace out of base and does not displace out of seat.

The only real displacement that has happened is a few very junior CA's were displaced to DCA when it first opened because not enough CA's wanted to go to DCA, but they were then able to bid back to their normal base as soon as there was another bid and they could hold their original base. The normal system bid would not force displacements. (If someone remembers how many were displaced and for how long, please post it. I didn't track that at the time).

FlyyGuyy

This is exactly why I upgraded as soon as I was eligible. You never know what tomorrow may hold. My thought was sitting reserve as a captain was better then line holding as an fo, pic time. But that's not for everyone.