Seriously folks - do you really think we are going to have trouble finding qualified candidates that you will want to fly with?

Between the military folks who are fed up, the regional pilots that have been waiting for two years to apply and the corporate guys that got a lot of time during the pandemic, we will be fine for 1-2 years.

I think ivory tower folks may have to cough up a new contract (which I hope is after Delta and United’s), but our base structure, cash position, and longevity of not furloughing (I know, I know - we got the warn letters - but no one’s feet hit the street) - we will be just fine from a recruiting standpoint. The training standpoint may be another question.

The regionals on the other hand will be a whole different story within 12 months. I would not want to be flying with what they be able to put in the cockpits bu the end of 2022.

 

Thank you for steering the conversation back to the topic.

The truth is, no one knows. Southwest is a great place to “get stuck at.” You’ll make good money, you’ll have a good quality of life, especially if you live in base, but you’ll be flying the same type of airplane and the same type of flying for the rest of your career. The upgrade time will lag substantially behind the legacies despite the numbers thrown due to simple math, the sheer size of the airline and the relative young pilot work force.

I mention simple math. Ask yourself this question:

What can you hold at 90% master seniority at a legacy, FedEx or UPS? How about at 80% master seniority? 70%? 60%? At which percentage of systemwide seniority will you be able to hold captain at United? Delta? American? FedEx? UPS? At Southwest, it’s around 60% on the master seniority list that you’ll be able to upgrade, and we have just over 9,000 pilots, with retirement schedule of 950ish retiring within 5 years, 2700ish within 10 years. At Southwest, the race is to 60% system seniority if you want to upgrade. It would be nice if some of our OAL friends would contribute the percentage of the master seniority list for junior captain in NB fleet for valid comparison.

I don’t doubt that Southwest will be able to hire the numbers we’re looking for. The question is will we be able to retain them?

 

Ask and ye shall receive.

FedEx

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Thanks Sluggo. Let me if I’m reading this correctly.

The junior most FO is MEM30 5559
The junior most CA is MEM57 3921

If so, that’s 70.5% of system seniority to hold junior captain.

 

And a FedEx pilot has a 99.78% chance of surviving covid AND holding a 777 wide body position.

 

67% for wide booty captain (MEM 30C under 5 years).

 

fify.,,..,....
​​​​​​

 

Obvious troll being obvious!

Actually I wasn’t triggered at all because the troll wasn’t doing anything to me directly. But they kept on derailing threads and getting them locked so I clicked the little thingy.

 

That's essentially right. The only caveat is that this shows current activated pilots, ones who are in training (or waiting to go to training) aren't on here. We do our seat bids different than most, where we have a huge massive bid about once a year, then train in "near" seniority order. We are ending the cycle from the last bid so I'd imagine the pilots in training or waiting to go are going to add to the juniority of that seat. I know the past few bids we've had sub-2 year Captain slots awarded (some seats even went to people not even off probation), but by the time they trained they weren't junior anymore. I'll see if I can dig up the results of the last bid to see where people were when they were awarded the seat.

 

Jr CAs from last bid:

MEM757 - 4493
MEM30 - 3952
MEM777 - 2277
MEM767 - 3114
MEM11 - 3727
ANC777 - 2540
ANC11 - 3455
OAK767 - 3428
IND767 - 3405
CGN757 - 4115