Agree Zap. Though for people hired today I don't believe the upgrade will be 10+ years but anything is possible.

Additionally, even if the upgrade was 10 years; since when did that become a LONG time to upgrade?!?!

That's my point. Legacy upgrade times have traditionally been lengthy. There will always be the lucky few who caught it at the right time and managed a 5 year upgrade. They're few and far between.

If we are looking at the quick upgrades at Delta, I guess you have to ask yourself this... if there is an upgrade that 6000 first officers choose to bypass - is it really an upgrade you want?


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If you live in domicile, the chance to pull down 250 large and put up with a few shenanigans on reserve ain't so bad. After you've had it and paid off all your debt and burned the mortgage choose a nice seat as an FO.

I would expect upgrade times to maybe slightly increase, then drop. If you look at the seniority list, after the AT purchase but before 2015 there was very little hiring. Also, senior FOs make great money and have great schedules, and reserve is still pretty brutal, so I'd expect more FOs to bypass. For those hired 2015 and later, 7 year upgrade could be realistic. SWA does actually have retirements that start to increase around 2023 onwards, or 5-7 years from someone hired today.

My guess is all the hiring is for better manning and increased growth.
It's cheaper to pay Premium pay to an existing employee then to hire another to pay both straight time. I get the feeling SW is gearing up for a major expansion.

Agreed. Wonder if a new type is coming?

I keep hearing from multiple sources that the goal is 12,000 pilots by 2022. So I went to myseniority.com to see the seniority list growth rate graph. That's roughly 7% seniority list growth rate by 2022. Please don't pay attention to numbers beyond 2022 as data becomes gibberish, as in no we most likely won't have 45000 pilots on the property by your retirement date. :)

We currently have right around 9,000 pilots on the property. Within that same time frame, we will be retiring around 600 pilots according to SWAPA retirement schedule. That means that in order to achieve the 12,000 mark, we'll need to hire 3,600 pilots over the next 5 years, or 720 per year.

Bear in mind, this is also assuming 0 early-outs, nor does it include any other factors such as people reaching the 18 year mark and having 5 weeks of vacation as opposed to 4.

This brings me to our upgrade times. Current junior captains are right around 60-61% on the master seniority list. Using that same seniority percentage, depending on when one was hired, the data seems to support a 5-7 year upgrade for those hired during this wave of hiring. For me personally, it falls just shy of 6 years on the property.

Now... this is all assuming organic growth, i.e. no mergers.

If we were to merge with someone, keep their pilots and dump their aircraft a'la AirTran, forget these numbers...

If we were to introduce a new aircraft type and keeping it organic, these numbers will likely get even better as it would require more hiring which would mean even quicker upgrade.

Who knows what will happen... but I do believe something is up as I know Southwest doesn't blow 9 figures on building facilities they don't fully intend to use to their max potential.

Bank on another M&A event in the next 12-24 months, so you can pretty much throw out any upgrade projections unless you are due to upgrade within that timeframe. I'd love to believe that the new sim building is for organic growth, but I've been here long enough to know better unfortunately and I've seen this before the AirTran acquisition and all signs point to another "merger". Even money on a JetBlue, Alaska, or Hawaiian merger in the not too distant future.

So based on this post is it safe to say we can throw out the projections on myseniority.com, or is this a one sided thesis?

My seniority.com is a tool and a snapshot in time. As of today, those projections if nothing changes are probably pretty close. As we all know, nothing in this industry stays the same. Change is constant, so I'm just adding my take to temper any expectations that what my seniority.com says today may not reflect what happens 1,5, even 10 years down the road, that's all.

Southwest paid 1.4B for AirTran.

Alaska - 9.3B
JetBlue - 7.38B
Hawaiian - 2.26B
Spirit - 2.71B

None of these airlines compete as directly with SWA as AirTran did, and other than Alaska, none have an orderbook full of 737s.

Alaska and JetBlue are really expensive.

Hawaiian and Spirit are expensive for what you get.

I just don't see it. AirTran merger proved that an acquisition isn't a shortcut to growth.

The seniority integration won't be as easy compared to how it went during the AT merger. Many lessons have been learned since then, and I'm sure the company knows this.

I don't see it happening either. AirTran was bought on the cheap. They were losing money and fuel was through the roof. Look at airline stock performance and price today vs then. The only thing I could see would be a fringe player like Sun Country or a minority stake in a foreign carrier.
When you think about an acquisition, think about it in the lens of an accountant, not a pilot. What do you get for the $$$?
We got a lot from AirTran and knocked out a direct competitor for cheap.

This exactly. Too many pilots think the airline thinks about them and makes decisions based on them. Think about the future of an airline as if you were a fly on the wall in a board meeting. Sorry to sound grim, but we don't matter...

Since we're spiff balling here, Alaska is WAY too expensive and probably wouldn't pass the DOJ smell test. Think about the PR nightmare of killing the Alaska brand...

I don't see Hawaiian either as we have absolutely ZERO commonality with them. Also, the State of Hawaii would also pitch a major fit over the loss of their "home" airline as they depend on reliable interisland air transportation that's already gotten battered with the loss of Aloha. No way they'd want or allow a mainland airline to control that. The whole thing would be a PR nightmare for Southwest.

I don't see JetBlue either... too expensive and incompatible with us.

I could see Frontier (not sure it'd pass the DOJ smell test) maybe and possibly Spirit, though again doubtful.

I don't see Sun Country - too small and barely even registering. Maybe for their aircraft?

Who knows....

I would be hoarding cash for the downturn in the economy. That is when a sale would make sense. Bargain hunting 101.

I'll put two beers that it will be Copa and 777 announced in the next 5 yrs

I don't see the big 4 getting into price wars with each other, but I do see them reclaiming lost markets.

The airlines are making money hand over fist right now. In business terms, that means a war chest. The time to kill the startups will be during the next economical down turn. You hedge your loss. Buy them, or price war them into bankruptcy. The later being the more economical option if the targeted company has low cash assets, and no callateral equity.

Who is that? Sun Country is not cash ripe, and they lease everything.
Frontier I believe is owned by a holdings company (think shell game to strip the cash). Spirit? Not sure about their structure.

So, as a bean counter what do you want? You want their market share. You don't want their debt or leased planes. You "drive them out". I think Allegiant, Frontier, Spirit, etc won't be bought, they will be the next targets of the big 4. Of the 4 who has the war chest? SWA and DAL.

Just one guy's take :)

So it's s settled, SWA/DAL merger. You heard it here first.

Informative post, thank you. One other question - could anyone say how many pilots are based in MDW? Thanks!

600 captains
588 FOs

Thank you!

Bulk of new hires are going to BWI, MDW and OAK. DEN and PHX look like about 5-6 mo on property to hold.

The very bottom vaires month to month. PHX was junior last year, now it's one of the more senior. MCO had new hires for a few months, then went senior. Last bid had HOU getting new hires for the first time in awhile. Basically, you really can't count on anything other then you'll get what you want in a reasonable amount of time, other than ATL.

About how long for a new hire to hold LAS?

Early August hires just got LAS on the November vacancy released today. It ebbs and flows, but as a new hire you can hold any base except ATL within 4 months of hire.

Classes
 

4 in October. 3 in November and 2 in December. All 26 for a total of 883 in 2017.

2018 is currently approved for 600 but that number will rise. Manning just submitted a request for more; waiting for the bean counters to approve.

100 more upgrades through the end of 2017. Hawaii to be announced soon no red eyes or codeshare yet. No real "growth" either. Back to 2015 fleet levels end of 18, just with newer and more reliable planes that fly longer per day and break less