FriendlyPilot

Just wondering how many of those 900 hires are replacing pilots going to other airlines vs actual growth?

Bozo the pilot

Good point- but they never even considered Spirit

BeechedJet

I remember after my sub 3 year upgrade into the middle country base I live in, I called my mentor and said "this sucks I wish I was commuting as an FO to Boston."

PilotBoyToy

That’s the truth!

Ddts

No one is choosing JetBlue over spirit unless they live in NYC or Boston

SSlow

I have friends at B6 with a similar DOH as mine with NK, and all of us live in Florida. I want to say around the time I upgraded (sub 3 years) to FLL CA they were finally just getting down here in the right seat.

Bocaflyer

LMAO!!! That's fantastic!

phly

Man I have had exacty the same. People ask me about Spirit, but tell me that JB is what they are gunning for... They live in MCO.

I guess they'd rather be the plug after 3 years than upgrade as soon as they can hold it.

Bocaflyer

Attrition is projected at about 300 for a rolling 12 month period. The list is actually extending south about 600 a year the last couple and the next several years (projected).

I honestly don't get all of the stagnation comments about jetblue on here. The growth is not double digit growth like when they were smaller and easier to post double digit growth; but it's still higher than the larger and more established / older airlines. I've been here 9+ years and I sit at 47% in the company with roughly 2400 pilots below me. Maybe I'm crazy but I've been happy with the growth here and my own personal movement considering we took almost 2 years off due to covid. Upgrade times are 3+ years (5ish on the A320) and that's not because the A220s are coming; it was that way prior to covid and the 220s arrival. I think things are moving pretty well here with growth and the list getting bigger / relative seniority getting better. Where some people might get frustrated is the younger age of our group. If you're bidding 100 in base 320 JFK CA (let's say) that won't change fast. That's the stagnation maybe they are talking about? Things slow down once you slide over to the left seat for sure, due to lack of real retirements. We have some, just not the hundreds like the airlines that our 4 times our size. That being said if we stagnate some in the left seat on the A320, at those rates / annual earnings I'm fine with that. We need to fix the reserve grid issues and have some real quality of life by being able to swap / drop and then I don't care much about the guys ahead of me being too young. Just my 2 cents.

Bocaflyer

So I used to think jetBlue had an identity crisis too. They don't; it's a plan they have communicated all along to start Mint, segway that into a premium trans atlantic cabin product and segway that into a Widebody IF they sell well long term. I just didn't believe them. LOL. It's not an identity crisis, its an incomplete plan still unfolding. So far it's on pace and doing exactly what they said it would. DL, AA, UA didn't start with wide bodies on day 1 either. I'm sure at some point it seemed like an incomplete identity until they were done 100%. When they started with Mint and I thought that was crazy. Turns out it worked great. They say they want 40 more A321s for more mint planes like yesterday, maybe they will use the spirit A321s if they get them. When they started LHR/LGW the route planning VP said it is 100% a test bed for wide bodies down the road. That is the plan. It's always been the plan. When the 20+ remaining LRs and XLRs show up and they are doing 6 or so countries in Europe maybe it doesn't seem so crazy. We will see. If they do well, they will upgauge the ocean crossing stuff to wide bodies. They have said that recently in pocket sessions. (Robin says he likes 787s because it's the plane that can hit any city on earth from any B6 focus city). So yeah, maybe in 7-10 years they are a widebody LCC and that's just normal. I think it's ok not wanting to be a legacy and not wanting to be a ULCC either. They don't have to pick a side.