Squallrider

What was most junior captain in last award?

Proximity

Same as November, since some bypassers bid to the left seat. Right now a ten year upgrade for a SWA hire. Ironically even though the future looks good for 2014 on onwards hires, upgrade will likely rise to 11-12 years in the near future.

Right now we are working through the bubble of 2008 SWA hires and former AirTran pilots. The junior capt is currently in the range of 800-1000 numbers above the last AirTran hire. Once we get through this group upgrade will start to drop as there were very few hires 2011-2014.

When will that happen? Good question because there are so many variables but hopefully we upgrade 500 next year and we chew up quite a bit of that bubble. LAX should be interesting also, after the initial bid by people who live there, how junior will LAX CA go considering the COS and what looks like poor quality trips.

There are reasons to come to SWA, and good reasons to go to UA, but for someone hired in 2018 I don't see how you could make an argument that upgrade at SWA would be faster.

e6bpilot

Great analysis of the current situation.
I think LA opening plus a huge upgrade boom next year will drive the time lower (eventually). Once we hit the bottom of the AirTran guys, it’s going to be game on since the bottom AirTran seniority is roughly in the middle of a huge hiring drought post 2008.

As for the future of the Lance program, it is dying on the vine right now. Lots of folks delaying upgrade means that it is tough to crack the Lance Captain percentage AND be opted in and eligible. I haven’t flown with a Lance in over a year.
The only way it will be revived is if senior FOs get spooked into upgrading. The company did a good job of killing that good deal in this contract.

e6bpilot

As for the pro union BS above, I assure you that there are plenty of regional kool aid guzzlers flying the line. By the same token, there are plenty of mil guys who are ardently pro union (myself included). Our most militant, loud mouthed, pro pilot union rep is in Oakland and he is still serving in the military and is a 6 digit FO.

The next contract fight is going to be tough and is going to once again divide this pilot group just like it did before. I think most of the koolies got a big shock last round.

Zard

Care to expound on this for a new guy? What in the current contract drives so many guys to bypass upgrade. I can understand QOL being more important than $ for a lot of the people sitting in the right seat around here. Is there something else I'm missing?

Smooth at FL450

July 2008 DOH. We're getting close to a 2 year gap where nobody was hired so upgrade time should drop accordingly, barring any major changes

e6bpilot

Sorry I didn’t make that clear. The changes in the Lance program are what killed it. The same guys bypass upgrade for the same reasons as before.

Used to be you could lance forever as long as you were in the top 2.4 percent of FOs or whatever the number is and you were opted in. There was a cap on the number of captain duty periods you could fly. It was a good deal and we all know what happens when someone is getting a good deal. Jealously arises and the word “unfair” starts rearing it’s ugly head. All good deals are stamped out in the name of fairness.
They changed it to a 12 month up or out , meaning that once you are eligible, you have 12 months and then you are locked out of the program. They also made it unlimited captain duty periods, but it doesn’t matter since hardly anyone is eligible for the program now since it is so hard to both crack the top percentage and have 12 months of eligibility.

SlipKid

While it is a factor, it's not just the lance program. Prior to the last contract, when you got close to getting into the top 8% of line holders in your domicile, you went to upgrade training (whether you wanted to or not) and were designated a lance as long as you were in that 8%. It would fluctuate, and it was possible to get bumped below 8%, and you couldn't exercise your lance privileges. There were very few restrictions on lance back then, and while a few folks did camp out in those seats for years (most spent a few months at most), it is nothing compared to the numbers today.

In MCO, many folks are bypassing upgrade for years vs. commuting to the left seat. Most of them tell me that they can make close the same money picking up FO open time in domicile on the same number of days that they'd be otherwise commuting, so they prefer to keep the QOL and flexibility. I can't say that I blame them.

Squallrider

A Senior FO can get a great schedule and mostly premium with some luck making almost captain pay whilst getting days off they want. I should say that’s traditionally as that depends of course on how much premium there is to go around

WhaleSurfing

Also, with the sample ETOPS schedule that was posted for OAK, with both the front and back end non-commutable, I think you’ll see the Oakland EBG go very very junior for captains. OAK has a lot of commuters and the hotel and crash pad situation there sucks.