Are they still with holding the 4 US slots per month?

My understanding is those are not being held, and the pass rate is very high.

Can you elaborate a little on what that means? Not clear what you are saying.

AAG has to fulfill their 48 a year by December. So they're not holding anyone back right now but they're actually taking more. Come January we might see pilots being withheld again but we are upgrading aggressively so it may not be the case. And I think he meant we only have 1 or 2 applicants that didn't get hired when they did intend to move on to AA. We still have a handful of pilots that declined the interview politely because they rather finish their career here.

That's my understanding as well. I've been told that the only guys who haven't passed were somehow required to interview even if they didn't want to move on, and politely said as much to the interviewers.

Seems like if you wanted to bypass, they should just let you bypass.

It's more like 13 months for the guys coming in with no 121 time. For those that already have the 1,000 hours, it's 8 months and dropping. If there are indeed upgrade eligible FO's that are postponing upgrade till after the holidays, that would of course skew that 8 month number a bit. However, for those coming in with no 121 time, all indications point to them being able to upgrade as soon as reaching 1,000 hours in the right seat.

I'm not understanding how this is possible. With over 800 pilots already there and half being captains how is upgrade only 8months?!?

Because the fleet is more than doubling in size in the next 20 months.

How easy is it to drop down in the SAP? (line improvement as I understand it).

As long as you remain at or above 65 hours for the next month, you can trade in and out of any weekend or holidays as you wish. Or group 8-10 days off in a row. And you can always pick something back up later especially on critical days where you'll get 4 hours min pay at 1.75 the pay rate for the entire trip you picked up.