A pilot hired February 2022 (this year) has over 1,000 junior to them and a pilot hired May 2021 has 3,000. If we do in fact get 100+ More widebodies like Kirby said, we will have to increase those numbers by 30%.

just to be more specific, early feb 22 hires have just shy of 1500 under them.

You could literally be talking about every domicile for every major. Didn’t realize SWA had the lock on garden spot pilot bases, must be why you can’t fill a class and the attrition rate is so high.



ETOPS lock?!? ROFLMAO. There’s a training lock for flying over water?!?! HA! Every fleet here does that, save for the bus.

Only a matter of time for the bus too.

Company doesn’t want to pay to train 8500 people who won’t ever do it. They wanted a Etops base lock to “get their $ worth” out of you to justify the training cost. New hires forced in those bases have no lock if those bases are at the bottom of their vacancy bid.

Do all Bus pilots get Etops trained even though they’ll never do it?

ETOPs training here is part of new hire training, of a separate course. I believe only the captains have to be checked out in the actual plane so the expense is minimal.

please read the rest of the discussion before responding to the first post. Once you put the koolaid down you’ll realize that the 100 WB are for replacing the antique fleet of 777s and 767s.

the 500 NB aren’t pure growth either, much of the current UA NB fleet is getting long in the teeth and due for replacement soon

Yes we know UA has hired 3000 since May 21, no doubt that UA is capable of hiring 8000 in the next few years. The doubt is that UA will actually need 8000.

How are we ever going to pay for 100 WBs? We are already pretty deep in the debt bucket…climbing out sure…but 100 WBs?!

Well retirements do ramp up, barring age 67 I think we lose
3000 over next 5 years. Factor in the regionals are dying ( for now, potentially a recession /Covid type situation brings back the model but even then crj200,erj145 are time limited and no more 700/900 being produced, erj175-2 is out of scope) , lots of flying is moving back to mainline. It’s currently a race to secure bodies to provide NB feed to hubs. Even if we don’t hire 8000 but just 4000 things would be great. I take everything with a pessimistic eye bud I am hopeful strangely

Exactly. And this is before the new 500,000 sqft training building with 12 more Simulator bays that won’t be done until the end of 2023. 2024 and beyond hiring will be off the charts.