We’ve had unfilled WB vacancies too. I’d say that the biggest factor there is the unknown with when that flying will stabilize. Others are holding out for the WB fleets, but only when they are senior enough to hold a flying seat since training never buys IRO trips.

None of the people that I fly with on the 737 even mention reserve as a reason for staying in the right seat. Several could be line holding captains, but still don’t want it. They all say that the amount of premium trips that they are picking up and double dipping when training buys trips offsets the difference in pay. Why give up 20% seniority to upgrade to 80% without any substantial difference in pay?

They can put new hires in the right seat of WB. And they will begin doing that shortly to address the unfilled vacancies in the last bid.

Todays new hire class was 320/737 only…

The short answer is because this won’t last forever. PP comes and goes. Last month in my category there was a ton. This month there is very little. When the White House declares rules to fight omicron there will be none.

PP does fluctuate, but another factor is that most of our junior pilots have young kids at home and want to be in control of their schedules. A few more dollars and a stripe isn’t worth missing time at home when they’re young. Upgrading early will mean that you will be at the bottom of the sack for a long time while people who waited to make the move until they had more seniority bid on top of you. To each his own, but I’m sure glad that I postponed advancement until I was more senior. Being home every holiday and taking a month off for summer vacation was worth more than the money.

I don’t disagree with this at all. Many very valid reasons to delay. I was simply replying to the comment about the ability to make as much money in the right seat as the left. This past summer I was flying with new FOs who were on 100% premium and making close to or more than I was. This will go away and likely pretty quickly. There simply will be no ability to close that gap by picking up especially at straight pay. Your post was about the fact that they don’t want it because they can make just as much in the right seat.

I totally agree about early upgrades. These pilots upgrading at 1.5 years will be junior for a very very long time. Reserve will be many years.

There are definitely many factors. Another one is that many of the first that I fly with have military pensions. They’ve missed out on so much being on deployments that they’re over that. It’s all about time at home and with two sources of income, it’s very easy to stay in the right seat and cherry pick when they want to work. They’ve definitely earned it.

Absolutely. I happen to be retired mil as well. That’s the great part about this job…we can each choose our own paths.

+1 for this. I’ve maybe had to bid more than guarantee once and with the bad/day worse day trading added a few years back, have been able to trade into even smaller schedules when I couldn’t drop. Wouldn’t have that same schedule control in the left seat.

Funny, I’m thinking the same thing. Junior NB flying is much more taxing than being 30% on the WB FO list.

I’d rather fly one leg to the gym and happy hour than the garbage they are pumping out in the name of efficiency.