I just hope it opens up some jr f/o spots in BNA….

 

Yea…maybe so. I really don’t know as I’ve kind of lost track of the current hiring environment. I know the legacies are still planning to hire a ton in ‘26 though. We had a decent portion of my class leave for UA and DL as soon as they got their 737 type. I don’t recall anyone leaving for AA. I would argue AA would be a great place to be with their seniority movement though. The whole imax thing over there is pretty nuts too. Getting 2-3 months off.

 

I dont think thats surprising, there are lot of HOU guys who live near AUS thatll most likely move.
or am I missing the point?

 

No point missed—just a metric for those worried about displacements.

 

I’ve no doubt AUS itself won’t have any displacements to staff it. I’m worried about the vacancies created in HOU, etc as a result of the vacuum. If they +150 AUS and -40 DEN, -40 HOU, -40 DAL and -30 PHX….how many out of PHX and DEN will get kicked out to fill the TX sized hole in HOU when 80 bid out or whatever it is.

 

ugh, didn't think of that. Maybe they can pull from BWI

 

It is very unlikely they will displace pilots in order to staff AUS, there are a TON of pilots that live around the area and are bidding it as their #1 choice.

 

It's not AUS I'm worried about...it's the bases that will have cuts to feed it. If the vacancy bid has HOU at -30, and 50 leave HOU...then they have to staff HOU by 20. I'm sure there's plenty in BWI/MCO who were displaced and want back west...so 20 get into HOU. Now BWI is short 20....nobody wants BWI because anyone who wanted it could have had it over the last year, so now you displace 20 more to BWI....from OAK or wherever. That's just HOU....now what happens when you have a base like DEN that already has been cut 20% and you decide to cut it more to staff AUS with block hours.... We had a vacancy of just 14 just close and there was a ton of movement so it's not as binary as my example but you get the gist. DRR doesn't count for secondary vacancies so guys booted from DAL/HOU won't get back in with priority on a secondary, but very well may be senior enough to hold it outside DRR, so it's a mess. The first couple projections should be pretty telling how it'll go but that's another month away and planning has been awfully quiet about future plans for the Western bases. Happy for those in TX who can now drive to work, but as someone who's lost 15% seniority in base and is only 6% away from a forced commute....it's unsettling.

 

They published something the other day that said 183 pilots were going to come out of Houston to supply 350 in Austin.
Remember that there are a bunch of newbies hitting the line in March as well. I am presuming there will likely be a large class of upgrades to hit in the March vacancy to correspond with all the those new FO’s.
If all that comes to pass, I not only don’t see anyone getting displaced, I think quite a few guys will find their way back home. (fingers crossed.)
I’m not sure where I saw it but either the company or swapa published the heat map and there are about 300 pilots that live within 100 miles of Austin.
I really don’t think there will be any displacements out of the AUS opening. The great thing is there are a lot of guys that are going to be driving to work, that never thought they would.

 

It’s been interesting watching the OSW lap up the product, until reality slowly dawned. I suppose it’s a positive character trait to believe that people are acting in everyone’s best interest, and not the result of greasy pole climbing narcissism. History is important. Imagine a person as a minor manager in a crew scheduling department that prided itself on tit for tat and an eastern-esque model of control. Now imagine that person has climbed the pole. Hypothetically of course.