Please post the current first available upgrade time at your airline (not just majors - I tried to edit thread title and it wouldn't let me). Any additional info like which fleet(s) and base(s) the upgrade is available on would be appreciated.

Also, if first available upgrade is to a lower paying fleet, how much time is required and what does the progression look like to upgrade to the highest-paying fleet and “better” bases? Would also be very helpful to get a feel for what a realistic number of hours/units per month of credit looks like for a typical non-striving pilot.

At SWA, for example, it's pretty realistic to be able to count on 95-100 TFP/month, though our guarantee is in the mid to high 80's depending on the month. Yes, some guys at SWA consistently credit 140 TFP or more, but I can't really say that's typical nor realistic to count on crediting that much on a consistent basis without a ton of work.

Thanks in advance!

The caution with this is of course the last year and a half has been an unprecedented hiring explosion caused by mass retirements and a V shaped recovery of travel demand after COVID. As an example, Delta could have had Captain awards for the 757/767-300 go unfilled, but in the last minute the company pulled back on some of those slots from the initial posting. As far as I'm aware, United has had some Captain slots go unfilled but they have contractual limits to how long pilots must be on property to be awarded an upgrade.

I'm listing these by DOH for the May bid period. If hiring/growth happens as planned, these numbers will go down. Also, these are just the bottom people who have been able to hold that seat on a vacancy bid. Base trade awards weren't included.

737/320 EWR, SFO, IAH, ORD, LAX, DEN, DCA, LAS ~1.5 years (1 year/off probation to bid and it takes several months to actually hold the seat)
737 GUM/CLE - 2015
737 MCO - 2000

756 EWR - 2017
756 SFO - 2021
756 LAX - 2021
756 IAH - 2007
756 ORD - 2015
756 DEN - 2015
756 DCA - 2015

The WB numbers are influenced by the SLI during the LCAL/LUAL merger, so they are just to give you an idea.

777 SFO - 1997
777 EWR - 1996
777 DCA - 1996
777 IAH - 1995

787 SFO - 2001
787 EWR - 1996
787 ORD - 1997
787 DCA - 1997
787 IAH - 1997
787 LAX - 1995
787 DEN - 1995

Thanks for this! Much appreciated.

Thanks.

Right now, a new hire could upgrade to the 756 fleet at 5 months if I'm not mistaken. If that new hire then wanted to hang out as a 756 CA until being able to upgrade to the first available CA slot on the 7ER or A350, how long would that take given what we know today (obviously, things can change)?

For United, you need a year and 500 United hours (and meet the FAA 121 mins, obviously).

we have well over 100 Captain vacancies right now.

To what do you primarily attribute all these vacancies?

No one wants to be junior

Yep. People keep quoting our reserve rules as the problem. However, that's a smaller part of the problem than it's made out to be. The vast majority people eligible to upgrade would be lineholders. It's the tradeoff to a crappy NB schedule of high credit lines, working weekends, holidays, vacation in September and other random months that keeps people away.

Reserve rules are the problem. I can hold the crappy NB lines but do not want to give up my weekends. I would bid reserve and get my weekends off if the reserve rules were better. It’s that simple, fix reserve and people will bid it.