To the original poster,
I like your optimism, but it is way WAY to early to claim victory!

Kirby is wrong about a lot of things.
He's a little man (literally) with big ego.

Could be wrong but I'm pretty sure at least one or two allowed you to come back with seniority (maybe with a loss of the weeks/months you were gone, which is common with some other types of LOA).

Makes sense, especially with eras where people got stuck for years or decades by industry timing. It allows older senior pilots (who have families, mortgages, lives, kid's college looming) to take a shot at moving up, without betting their family's future on a training event. It's not a trivial decision, BTDT, and I had relatively recent training events and also the military kept my brain more engaged than say someone at a single-type regional who upgraded 15 years ago.

Makes sense for the airlines too, regionals clear their books of expensive lifers, and majors get more access to experienced pilots.

Very unlikely, SW and AS are too big to fail, the way the industry is currently structured. They might or might not be too big to preemptively merge with each other depending regulatory climate.

If the big three suppress SW/AS over many years, they might hypothetically shrink to the point where they become small enough to fail. But in the near/mid term if they struggled financially they would be allowed to be acquired.

Even B6 liquidating would be disruptive in the NE, kind of doubt they'd just be allowed to die either.

I'm glad NK made it through the holidays, and any pilots considering leaving are now within field goal range of the typical legacy pre-summer hiring ramp up.

But those finances do not look good. I don't claim absolutes, but I have trouble seeing the numbers in any positive light. Unless you assume creditors will keep pouring money in indefinitely, but I don't see that math either. Unless there's some crazy out-of-the-box solution in the works that just needs more time, but that kind of thing might not be good for labor.

Well we did make it to 2026, which is what Kirby said we wouldn’t do (several times). Yes, we’re not out of the woods yet.

IIRC, Republic allowed you to come back within a year of resignation if you left on good terms with bother Union AND the company. HR could just say “no” and that was that, but pilots at RPA did go back at previous longevity and seniority after failing out of another airline’s training program

I mean, we’re not out of the woods at all. IMO making it to 2026 means absolutely nothing. There is either a merger agreement being finalized, we shrink back to a small east coast leisure carrier or legacies turn up the pressure to drive us out of business in quick fashion. I don’t see NK ever rebounding to what it was

It’s funny how this troll (original poster) posts this thread like it means anything.

He lists names of people who never said anything about Jan 1, 2026 meaning anything, and then he targets Kirby, another troll.

Jan 1 2026 means nothing. Still losing money by the day and some are acting like progress has been made. Live to fight another day is important but to conflate it as being progress in the business is insane.

That's kind of what I was curious about. It's not exactly way out of left field then.

Not suggesting that it should be that way as I know there are varying opinions either way, but thanks for confirming that is has definitely happened before at certain carriers.