Unless it's a FNL or COS base, I don't think you are going to get a lot of DEN folks leaving voluntarily. Yes, there are commuters in DEN, but they are shotgunned from all over the system since it has so many flights on two or three carriers. I left DEN because the writing is on the wall. The flight count will remain level, but the overnighting aircraft are going to continue to shrink. That OCT vacancy was a gut punch. Had I known earlier, I would have pulled the plug and gotten etops locked earlier and vacation bids in a better position. I tried to stick it out believing what crew planning had forecast. Now I don't believe an effing thing they say.

 

lots of STL & MCI commuters in DEN

 

Has anyone had a successful interview with a CJO in 2025? It seems pretty quiet on the WN front.. Also how long is it taking to hear back after the interview? Just curious when/how many classes they plan on running by the end of the year. I'd have zero problems taking first available! (If I get offered a position of course) 🤞🙏

 

I would like to see numbers. I know SWAPA has put them out before. I am willing to bet that Chicago has the bulk of the commuters from both those cities. DAL has some also. I have only flown with less than a handful of pilots from those cities in Denver and maybe only one from KC. I know a new base would suck up people already commuting for a better commute or seniority, but the signals coming from the home office aren't good for Denver. More overnights in satellite cities mean less in the base and more shoulder flying with 0500 pushes to make the first connections so they can be in California for the 9:30 meeting in Santa Clara or head to Cancun for the vacation.
I want Denver to come back, but I don't think anyone in Dallas does. I think the plan is to keep it as a big west coast connector in order to keep United from gobbling up any turf. That doesn't involve more people, though.

 

Flown with 2 OMA guys in the last month who said they can sit rsv at home if MCI is a base. I’ve no idea how the secondary vacancy market shakes out if a ton of guys leave DAL/MDW or whatever people commute from.

I’m with you on never believing the lies coming out of planning again. I still think basing staff based on RON planes when you have no change in flights and planes doing no RON due to redeyes is a little ridiculous. Is that how the big 3 staff bases too? Or is that another SWA reinventing the wheel (terribly)?

 

Company has f said anything about a new base. They said they have 300 vacancies in March and no idea where they’ll go…so read between the lines….

Union said a new base will be announced in the next few weeks. Said we needed 1-2 new bases to fix our trips (more 4 days than people want, etc).

 

Yes, interview on the 25th of Sept, CJO Oct 2nd- planned class Dec 8th.

 

Ok great, thanks for the info, very much appreciated.

I’ve read all the possible places it could be, there’s been some good reasoning behind a lot of the suggestions. From what I can tell the company can definitely throw some surprises in there, so I suppose it’s a waiting game for now.

 

Congratulations! That's awesome!

 

Yeah. If you go off RON aircraft it’ll be SAN or AUS. Do you want 3 bases in TX? Do you want a base being shut down because of a mishap on a single runway airport? If you want to take pressure off MDW and connect people through some other place then MCI/STL does that. But…your guess is as good as mine…they could announce BOI for all I know.