JB put out at VIB 2019 that they plan on hiring 500+ pilots in 2020. I’ve heard it echoed by JB pilots that the company is planning to hire 3,000-4,000 pilots over the next 5 years.

What is the validity of this information? A320neo series aircraft are coming as replacements for older aircraft + A220s coming to do mostly 1:1 replacements of the E190s? Attrition? Growth?

I’m interested in JetBlue, but I’m curious as to what the outlook is for the company and if I’m going to stagnate at the bottom of the seniority list for many moons.

Management is saying that exactly. People in the training department say no way. I say it depends entirely on the economy.

We’ve been pretty steady over the years. I think net growth of 250-300 which would mean hiring around 400 is more likely. We’ll see what actually happens with a/c deliveries, attrition, etc

Easy math says that current staffing is around 15.5 pilots per airframe, and with a nice round 350 airframes when orders are complete, that means 5,425 pilots.

So unless the pilots per airframe number goes up, it's pretty easy to compute.

Best case scenario the 190's don't get parked, and it's more like 410 airframes, then say 6,355 pilots.

But those are totals, there are already 4,000 pilots on property.

580 from OSC 2 weeks ago. New sim late summer will help matters a lot.

321 neo are not replacements. They are in addition. I would see some older airbus frames getting replaced down the road by 220’s. The only scheduled replacements are 60 190’s by 70 220’s.

I think the 500 plus number which is being repeated in recurrent and everywhere else is mostly for growth, some attrition, and some contract related.

Probably only NET 400 to the seniority list each year next 5 years. Might have to hire 500+ per year to do that when you account for attrition (~100 per year, but probably going to increase as legacies start hiring more) and JB's slight uptick in retirements (increasing to 30-40 per year).

So probably net 2,000 over 5 years, definitely not 3,000-4,000.

580 this year?

Seems right

2020. That’s what CP said