This, plus it does have some impact scheduling your initial training. Most senior pilot in class on each fleet gets to request days off/select schedule first.

In addition to the schedule issue above, my other thought was how do they protect and honor seniority within the class? What mechanism would a newhire have to ensure that someone senior to them did, in fact, bid a spot that they might have missed out on. I would hope there is some check on this, but I'm not familiar with the new process. Maybe it's as simple as pilot 9999 piping up and saying "Hey, NYC320B was my first choice. Why did pilot 4444 get it and I didn't."

last 4 digits of your social security # determines seniority within a class. highest to lowest. 9s are most senior 0s are least.

Maybe I'm not expressing myself well...
The thrust of what I was idly wondering is what mechanism does a more senior pilot in class (pilot 9999) have if they think someone more junior (pilot 4444) was awarded something that they wanted? Im just saying that this "email your bid and we'll make sure we honor it" system seems to lack some transparency if someone calls shenanigans. At least thats how it seems from the outside looking in.

Wouldn't worry about that for a second. Its easy to see who got what. In the extremely unlikely event someone in NH processing forgets how to count that week, a quick call to DALPA will have it fixed before you figure out your hat size.

OK what are "Drops"?

Drops are assignments or what aircraft/bases are given to new hires in Indoc.

More accurately, "the drop" refers to the options of fleets and bases that newhires have to chose from during indoc.

It's a hangover from AF guys. A "drop night" is the night guys find out what plane they'll fly for their career. Big party...lots of fun!

Any ideas how many in the pool? How far out are interviews scheduled?
If they are this behind as you guys think surely there’s people lined up. Last I heard there’s no job fair till maybe year end as is tradition.

Buddy hired mid november got a february class date. 3 month wait for a class. Company doesn't seem to have the training capacity to do what they say they want to do or if they do have the capacity they arent using it. 3 month waits for class dates doesn't add up if they are going to be staffed for summer.