To pick a nit, golden days don't figure into this calculation.

I agree 100%. Not sure what the actual buffer should be. 10% seems a little low, but it's just a SWAG.

I "think" the retirement of the Bro (although forecasted for awhile) is an effort to slow the hemorrhage of pilots. Additionally, the rumor I've heard is that we are currently turning down some flying (emphasize rumor) to avoid the predicament RAH found themselves in, having to cancel flights for lack of crews. I understand this is occurring but not at the same rate.

WRT attrition, my seniority number has gone up about 40 spots since the last bid package came out. I would imagine that rate with remain relatively constant or increase over the next several months. Reading the major forums and looking at the hiring threads, there is a lot of movement. Southwest got rid of the type requirement .

In many ways I believe having a lack of pilots is a good thing. It SHOULD stimulate pay increases and competition between companies to attract the talent. However, it also results in a hit to QOL for EVERYONE, not just us poor bastards on reserve.

Can you tell me where this is? I don't see anything on SWOL or on sapa site. If this is true it's an absolute ****ing scam. Why anyone would sit back and allow this to happen is beyond me.

The 2014 numbers for SkyWest is 1,091,131 so nice job on the estimation. Of course these may not be exact since we estimated on the total block hours when we started flying the E175 for the first couple months.

Looking over the numbers for the past year confirms my feelings. We have so many people in training for 175 and CA upgrades, that we are running the same amount (or more) of block hours with less pilots.

In Feb of 2014 we had 85,571 block hours combined. We had 1,488 Captains bidding and 1389 FO's with 243 CA reserves and 220 FO reserves.

Fast forward a year and we had 92,001 block hours (7% increase) with 1460 Captains bidding (2% decrease), 1295 FO's bidding (7% decrease) with 212 CA reserve (13% decrease) and 162 FO reserve (27% decrease)

This lines up with the fact that we lost 36 FO's in January and February, and have that much or more in training. So I guess if you want to look at the glass half full, we have lots of opportunity for the FO's that want to commute to MSP for the $hittiest lines we have in the system.

I think we will be in better shape when the EMB guys are done with transitions, but we could be in worse shape since we are losing over 40 pilots per month so far this year. In summary, we are all getting bent over the past couple months because we should have hired more people before we started the E175 training. But KB thought that since our attrition was so low when nobody was hiring, that nobody was going to leave. I guess that is why he "retired"

SAPA site has the PIC report from RJ. I got to it by clicking on the latest tab and PIC Committee report.

Flying gets turned down all the time, especially when the numbers don't add up. SkyWest Airlines is in the driver's seat and can pick and choose precisely what flying it wants to do. And trust this, the EMB would still be flying it were still economically viable. It just isn't anymore. They managed to scrape seven years more out of it than anyone ever planned on. It was a phenomenal feat.

Maybe I'm just totally stupid but I'm not finding this "latest" tab?

Click on the committee tab on the top of the page, then it should show up in a box on the right.

Biggest one week loss since I started keep track last year. We lost 8 CA and 10 FO's in the past 7 days. 4 CRJ's and 1 ERJ from training alone. The ERJ may have been a no show, but the others look like they were in class for a little while. Maybe we are trying to hire 100 per month so we can get 70 of those on the line?? Seems a little ironic that we have such a high washout rate on the first couple classes that CE wasn't in charge of.

Wsahout or leaving for the fast upgrade at CZ, mesa, etc?