Delta hiring = movement?
 

Just a thought while I'm on the internet here in Iraq...Delta is supposedly hiring 250 starting around summer time. Will that mean recalls and/or hiring on the regional airline level?

Hopefully! I'm guessing many mid-range captain at regionals will be applying. Not to mention flow-throughs from Compass and Mesaba will help too.

I'm actually pleasantly surprised that several majors are hiring before regionals are. Except for a little bit of Colgan, Eagle, and Compass hiring in the past months, JetBlue, Airtran and now Delta have seemed to begin opening the floodgates. I thought regionals would start hiring again and it would be awhile longer until any major was.

Of course I better duck now because I just said something positive on APC! :eek:

maybe. delta does a good job taking its fair share of pilots from the military, who may not be in the regionals. but the best case scenario is 250 recalls/new hires at the regional level divided among the 15 or so regional airlines. with a large chunk coming from compass and mesaba due to the flow thru agreements. of course if each airline only loses a few pilots maybe they will just increase everyones line values just enough to cover the lost handfull of people. the hiring boom is on.

I'll have to dig through the pages of delta threads, but does anyone know why Delta is hiring 250? Attrition? Retirement? Expansion?

If it is retirement, is this the "outflow boundary" of the predicted 2012 retirement?

The number was 240. There is a thread about it in the Majors forum. Here's the email I got from airline apps.

"Delta will begin hiring pilots after the summer schedule ramps down in late August. Right now they anticipate needing an additional 240 pilots based on forecasted retirements and an increase in flying.

For those pilots interested in joining the Delta team, please update your application in the Airline Apps system. For those who don't currently have a Delta application in Airline Apps, simply add Delta to your job targeting or click the new applicant link to start a new application."

The latest number is 300

I've heard new hire classes of 30. The first three or four classes could be pretty much all Compass and Mesaba folks, but after that they hit the annual percentage limits that protect Compass and Mesaba from losing too many of their pilots at one time. Compass has rights to 20 seats and Mesaba 9 for the pilots that qualify for the flow provisions in the first couple of classes though.

Major expansion; they can't stand the thought of not being "the world's largest airline". ;)

We need bigger numbers then 240... Its nice, but its not gonna change the world.

Another consideration is that approx 300 pilots remain on voluntary furlough and their return, when it occurs (and you have to assume most will return), will impact hiring from the street. As the previous poster said, it's a start but more is needed to really see an impact.