Up to the individual. One captain called in retired for his trip and was done right then. No fini flight, cake or anything.

Another was in sim for a check, decided he was done, and told the instructor to take the sim off motion he was leaving.

25 in April, 43 by June

Yes, if in SDF, they take them out to the ramp, watch them land and taxi including the fire truck water show, then let them on the plane before going back to ASC for a farewell.

That's a very nice thing that UPS does for the retiring pilot and his/her family. I'm sure they will all remember that for a long, long time.

For the night flying capts retiring, I don't think they offer the firehose arches. There is the cake, but most of the pilots there aren't going to wait around unless they have a strong personal connection...they will head off to the sleep rooms to try and make it through the west coast outbound.

Here's the way I see it.

We will see the retirements in three waves. The first will be the guys waiting for the bonus to retire and that's 4/1/17. The next wave occurs through the late summer as the 1988 hires hit 30 years of service. 1/1/18 is the third wave.

Retirees on 1/1/18 will get their sick bank and 5 weeks of vacation paid out and that's over $100,000.

5 weeks of vacation equals 175 hours times 300 and a full Vick bank is 158 hours times $300.

^^^^^^^This!

Are these retirement numbers already factored into the hiring of 300 this year?

Spot on except the hourly rate will be $309 on 1/1/18. And doesn't the sick bank go up to 168 by then as well?

Yes...along with mandatory retirements, contractual changes that require additional staffing, and beginning to staff the -8s.

That said, if the actual number of early outs exceeds projections, that'll drive additional hiring beyond the 301 original vacancies.