P&W Engine Issues
 

Not sure if this is in another room but the next few quarters are looking kind of bleak for NK, regarding these NEO problems.

Via CNBC today:

“Spirit recently confirmed to investors that the recall will leave the ultra-low-cost carrier with fewer aircraft to fly as well as an over-staffing problem impacting operations in the fourth quarter and early next year, the Financial Times reported.”

Wonder how this will all play out.

Staffing problems will self correct as long as the legacies keep hiring. If they don’t, Spirit will furlough along with everyone else who is overstaffed for the economic hand they’re dealt. If the merger is approved, JetBlue may have an input on how much over staffing is acceptable given their increasing losses to the legacies as well.

NK is at 60% attrition this calendar year.... overstaffing isn't a concern.

Why would anyone else be over-staffed? This is limited to a few airlines. NK is taking fewer deliveries than planned, losing about 30 319s and has at least 8 neos parked for engine replacement at the moment. Sort of a unique issue, no?

So over staffed that we have 100 new hires set for each month for the next few, and the most upgrades we have seen in a year. The "overstaffed" was more in reference to us not having an attrition issues, when asked directly about attrition.

If the retirement age changes things will come to a major halt and fast. Combine that w an economic downturn that we all keep waiting for and a bunch of new hires will get a taste of how this industry really works.

I don't understand why everyone thinks possible retirement age would change anything. Do you think that just because they CAN all the retiring pilots WILL continue flying past 65. Heck, even now pilots are retiring before 65 cause they made enough and want to enjoy life after work...

Funny, I remember people saying the same thing people when it was proposed from 60 to 65…

This is damn funny. Do I think pilots will continue to “fly until they die,” yes. Do I think a 65 year old pilot will take 2 more years in the left seat of a heavy, knowing they can always medical out and enjoy 2 more years of LTD pay, yes. Did this exact same thing happen when age 65 was discussed, yes.

I have flown with a few 64 year olds recently. They're flying right up to 65. Only exception is if they have recurrent in the month or two prior they're thinking about not going. With the new news I think those few I know are going to stay until 67. Maybe they'll do a few turns just to pay for insurance, but still they're keeping that vacancy for themselves longer than expected. I imagine this will just throw the problem two years down the river. I expect legacy hiring to slow way down soon, for a couple years.

Absolutely. Changing the retirement age from 65 to 67 - even if it were actually to occur - wouldn’t have 15% of the effect of changing it from 60 to 65. Not only would there only be two years involved (40% of the POTENTIAL person-years of the 60 to 65 change) but between vacation time owed and medical leave,the oldest are among the least productive and certainly the most likely to lose their medical. The vast majority would still be retiring without ever using the two year extension. Yeah, there would be some that would continue to work to pay off three exes or buy one last toy but they’d be a small minority.

My guess is 2 more years will have a net impact of about 1 more year in the average retirement age, when everyone is pooled together.

With massive annual retirements in the majors, and current shortages, I think it will have minor impact.

Were some of you that think this is a nothing burger even alive in 2007. It was catastrophic for many careers. 2008 would have hurt but raising the retirement age in 2007 made 2008 cut much much deeper than it would have otherwise and last years longer than it would have. Thousands of furloughs deep into seniority lists that lasted years. Most of which would have been mitigated if the retirement age hadn’t changed the year prior and the olds kept rolling out the door. Instead they all stayed even when they said they wouldn’t and kept their spots at the top while thousands of us couldn’t even find jobs bagging groceries.

That's it. Half of these people were riding pine on their tee ball teams when the adults were dealing with the market tanking and 65.

This.

They probably won’t feel the effects of this for a while while the hiring market is strong, until the next industry event hits. The reality will set in for them when they are sitting captain reserve or their standing bid for a senior base goes unfilled a couple more years while those of us who sat frustrated through age 65 bid ridiculously easy schedules and take all the cherry vacation slots and pad another million or so in 401k growth.

Which is yet another thing that makes this a nothing burger compared to the 60 to 65 change.

Not only do you lose a fair number of pilots on the way to age 65 to retirement, LTD, and medical issues, but the more senior they become GENERALLY the fewer actual flight hours they do fly due to the buildup in vacation time, and the increase in seniority (and knowledge of how to work soft pay). Not only are you only talking 40% of the POTENTIAL person-years compared to the move from 60 to 65, the reality (in terms of flight hours) is less even than that.

I rather expect that if this 65 to 67 change did go through (and I doubt it will) and a big economic downturn came, managements would do very much like what some did with COVID, offer early retirement or LOAs to allow those within a couple years of retirement to try to get rid of their most expensive and least productive employees to spare the junior people from furloughs, not because of any great love of their junior people, simply because they fly more hours and cost less money.

This is laughable. You are arguing that as a pilot gets older, their gaming of the soft time and vacation time increases; so a pilot flying 65-67 will have "more vacation time than a 64 year old" and more "knowledge how to work soft pay." Newsflash, a 65-67 year old will already be maxed on vacation, just as their 63 and 64 year old counterparts will be. You know why, because 99% of them were hired over 20 years ago. Also just as funny that a 66 year old pilot has the "soft time" answers that the 63 year old doesnt.

LTD and medical are the main reasons why it wont have as many old farts continuing past 65. But just as others have said, its not a single event; just like 65, take 67 and add in an economic downturn and it can be a catalyst for more than just a "nothing burger."

Lol. What was this thread about again?

Laugh all you want. The reason United gave early retirement to those within three years of retirement was because it made economic sense to do so. That would apply even more so to 65-67 year olds.

add in any significantly severe black swan event and it will be more than a nothingburger with it without age 67. But by no stretch of the imagination would going from 65 to 67 be nearly as severe as going from 60 to 65.

The economy from 2007 through 2012 was far more catastrophic to your career than age 65.

Furloughs would have been short lived or nonexistent in 2008 because the retirement numbers would have been huge while the airlines contracted.

That’s the thing people are missing, seems to people who were still doing steep turns on a 172 or in high school back in 2008….it’s not the single event of 65-67. It’s the coupling of that with an economic event. Hell, “Swiss cheese” model if you need it to make sense to a pilot. Life happens when making plans.

Maybe it time for the industry to give a nice kick in the teeth for some to understand this career has never been bourbon and “handies,” it’s a fickle girl who uses teeth.

Yeah and an asteroid might destroy the dominant life forms on the plane too, just ask the dinosaurs. But that wasn’t what some of us were saying that some of you thought “laughable,” What we were saying was:

1. The effect of 65-67 (if it were even to occur) would be substantially less than the effect of 60-65.
2. In the event of an economic downturn management would try to mitigate their furloughs by offering early retirement to the oldest pilots, like they did for COVID.

No one was claiming that there isn’t variability in the prospects of an airline career (or any other) because of even normal variability far less black swan events.

well you were so accurate with your predictions of AA failures and how successful NK will be post Covid.

I don't know whats up with the personal attacks, but I'm going to call the Mods.

Paying large sums to get guys to retire that would have already been legally retired. GENIUS!

Covid caught the airlines by surprise. They didn’t know what to do. It will be furloughs next time, or early out packages.

Explain in detail the difference between “early out” and “early retirement.”
Explain in detail the number of people who WOULD have retired BUT FOR 60-65 and compare that to the number of people who WOULD defer retirement I’d 65-67 happens.
Explain in detail the economic situation in the five years immediately following 60-65 (2007-2011)

https://i.ibb.co/P9ChHZp/IMG-6377.jpg

With what it is now.

I’ll grant that 2007 was a bad time to be an airline pilot, but that’s no reason to squirrel away gold and bury coffee cans full of silver dollars in the backyard like your Depression scarred grandparents did.

One HUGE difference between then and now is that many of those who continued past 60 to 65 when it was lifted were doing so to re-build or actually build their nest egg. The bankruptcies scarred many of those pilots, and that extra 5 years provided them some relief financially.

Absolutely true.

https://i.ibb.co/wMJSdhW/IMG-6380.jpg

autocorrect. Furloughs NOT early out packages.

You cannot compare GDP of the country to this profession but that graph proves that as bad as 2008 was it was really the retirement age change that screwed everyone the most.

If you didn’t live it then you have no idea what it was like. Retirement age increases have effects you cannot put into words. Just watch when it happens. Our minimums will go right back to 4000TT and 1000TPIC when we eventually start hiring again which may take a while. We don’t even have that many retirements but it’s an industry ripple. Attrition will stop. Add in NEO issues, merger, any significant economic slowdown. It’s not going to be fun.

Spot on. It’s always multiple issues that compound. Sometimes it just takes the last straw to break the camels back.

Autocorrect turned “furloughs” into “early out packages”? YGBSM

READ WHAT I POSTED. It wasn’t just the retirement change, but the fact that Delta declared bankruptcy in 2095 and defaulted on their pensions:

https://www.pionline.com/courts/delt...filings%20said.

United declared bankruptcy in 2005 and defaulted on their pensions:

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/11/b...ion-plans.html

And American threatened pension default to force salary givebacks and freezing of pensions with conversion to 401Ks in their bankruptcy.


https://inthesetimes.com/article/a-v...re-still-looks

And then there is still the math. A two year change from 65-67 simply will not have the same impact as a four year change that was largely approved to allow the pilot who had been hammered by their company’s bankruptcy to try to offset the retirement funds and salary they had just lost.

It is not remotely as severe even in the unlikely event it actually happens.

The autocorrect changed my NOT to OR in my post.

The reasoning behind the the 60-65 age change can be debated but it’s irrelevant. The effect on the careers of everyone else is what we are talking about.