Curious on the percentage of pilots on reserve in each base. I understand I am still relatively junior in the company but I am sitting at 67% on the 737 as a FO in EWR and still nearly 10-15 people below the GLine. Is it Part 117 causing 30-40% of the pilot group to be on reserve or are they using EWR as the RSV pool? Does this number shrink as flying increases during the summer? Thanks in advance!

It will fluctuate with the seasons. During March through the summer flying season you'll be a line holder. Then back to reserve until November and December. Keep the faith, with us moving up 20+ numbers a month, you'll be a permanent line holder soon.

Normally you are right but what's happening in EWR isn't normal. Hopefully this changes but those who are holding onto lineholder status just across the line are slowly falling backwards towards reserve at about 1-5% a month depending of where you are. This has been going on for months now. Main reason is people bidding in ahead of them. Hard to believe but EWR is actually a good deal in the system stateside as a 73 FO and people are figuring that out. The writing is on the wall for IAH and CLE and ORD in particular doesn't offer real great trips for junior Holders. As expected they're coming here. Your twenty a month won't show its effects in the 73 FO ranks at EWR until they upgrade or a better deal in the system presents itself. For now EWR is the soup du jour. Bizarre but true.

Some of us 07/08 hires in EWR are waiting for ORD to grow so we can get back home.

CLE has 20 departures a day, ORD around 80 and yet they are both staffed around 100 pilots per seat. On the first vacancy they allowed 20 ORD slots that were mostly taken by 320 FOs. Since this apparently surprised them, there have been no vacancies since. Despite being told from schedulers and new hires that ORD is going to double.

The current staffing model is all jeffed up for various reasons.

Some of us 98/99 hires are waiting for ORD to grow. If they post bumps from the 76T or 320 or vacancies on the 737 senior folks will head that way. They don't want to do that, much less let any L-UA person get trained on the 737.

Either way, you are senior to lots of people who have been here longer (including furlough time).

As a brand new guy I've been sitting 90% in IAH for 6 months. Reserve isn't that bad there and I'm not gonna complain to anyone, especially those who sat reserve for 10 years when they first got hired. We'll all move up as retirements progress and the staffing calms down. Just happy to be here...

Agreed. That said is there a chance that junior EWR 73 FO's could be displaced out of the bottom to other bases?

Not unless there is a MASSIVE change in the manpower "plan."

As a result of the last two equipment bids the largest number of unfilled vacancies are EWR 737 FO and that is the reason nearly all new hires are being sent there with the exception of a handful of NYC 320 and 76T slots.

If you mistyped and meant IAH, that's a possibly but unlikely (IMHO) considering UCH's penchant for avoiding bumps at all costs (example: ORD 76T) and if IAH 737 FO is too big they will let it shrink via attrition.

To where would they get displaced its the junior base.

Random question but is it safe to assume it would take several years for a new hire to get to LAX?