I think you will see block hours go up as well. One thing mgmt is keen on is capacity discipline and utilization. I guess that's two things. We aren't buying jets to less efficient and raise costs.

Then why plan to hire 700 pilots in 2015 when we only retire half of that? There's got to be some growth in there.

I'd echo the same...hiring like there's no tomorrow, but it is double the forecast retirements.

An extra 350 pilots beyond forecast is roughly 17 pilots per "growth" airplane...is that about normal staffing? I think it is.

I still wonder with a loss of 63 RJs, and a gain of 21 jets (of various sizes, but the biggest increase seems to be 737s), could it be that 737s will fly some of the bigger RJ routes? And, since the legs might be shorter than what they flew previously, the block hours could be relatively constant?

21 additional airframes is roughly a 3% increase, and that seems to dovetail with the 2.5% capacity growth figure quoted for the year.

I only looked at this quickly but it appears that we are reducing 61 RJ at 50 seats each while increasing mainline by 21 179 seat 737. So although UAL ( mainline and regional)will show relatively flat ASM growth mainline will see growth as regional routes return to the 737 and the 320. Also many of the 76T will be converted to the 756....so some of these aircraft utilization rates will not be realized until late 15 early 16.

Could be wrong only spent a few min looking.

Apparently t38 and I had similar thoughts at the same time.

"Then why plan to hire 700 pilots in 2015 when we only retire half of that? There's got to be some growth in there."

Could these large hiring numbers be an effort to counteract staffing shortages incurred by lots of training with regard to upcoming seat movement (esp. once fences come down)? Just curious...I'm a big dummy just thinking out loud.

Probably not. Training isn't new, and we've always had to have enough pilots to cover the ones in training. So its likely that we just need more because the net number of planes is increasing.

Either way you look at it, these are the good times. We are making money, hiring like crazy, and now that we've consolidated down to 4 big domestic carriers, we have less competition so more pricing power.

Lets hope our next contract rewards that and that we continue to grow and create more opportunities for everyone.

The extra aircraft and pilots would allow for growth. Lets just hope it happens. But so far, no announcement.

Putting 763's on a 757 route to Europe increases ASM's as well.

Putting a 757 to HNL on a route flown by a 738 is also ASM positive.

These two scenarios are part of the current plan.

Couldn't the low mainline ASM numbers for 1Q 2015 also be attributed to the new "seasonality" of flying? Isn't there now something like 40% capacity difference between winter and summer international flying?
If these stipulations are true then 1Q 2015 ASM would show the increases due to slimline seat installation, but then rapidly increase for 2Q and 3Q for spring and summer.

Not only that but we don't publicly announce new routes a year in advance, so there may be some of that coming out soon as well.