We'll still fly there. We just won't have a base there. The Island Hopper will be flown by LAX or SFO.

And what about everything else? 2 week trips? You seem to be way out on a limb here.

Not counting the 777 flights we only have 11 departures there and some of those aren't profitable. So I'm not sure how they plan on staffing it.

You clearly have no idea what you are talking about. Let me guess they will overnight in MAJ?

No. HNL, GUM for two nights, HNL. It would still be augmented (the hopper part).

Go read the FRMS exemption letter and tell me how an LA/SFO crew is going to do that trip? Have to be a total rewrite and new data to a very skeptical FAA. All that for a minimum 8 day trip with special qual'd crews, tons of soft time, and hotels needed. Nevermind that no GUM base pilots means no recovery option. They aren't building any Marriotts in Kosrae btw.

It can be flown as a 7 day trip. Intrepid, I said before that I'm not making a guess here. I'm just passing along what I've heard the folks in the big building in Chicago want to do. I'm not in charge. I don't get paid to think about hotels and recovery options. That's their job.

Hearing what some super cool guy in the big building wants and reality are two VERY different things. Whoever fed you this has zero idea how complicated and difficult the FRMS exemption for the island hopper was to obtain. Slapping a non COLA states side crew on it prob sounds great to some mid manager, but sucks for him that the FAA will think very differently.

You seem to take it personally. That's fine. Most of the other info that has been passed along over the last couple years has been pretty accurate. It's neither my guess or my wish for GUM to close. Rest easy since you don't believe it will happen.

Did he pass along that the 400 base in ORD would close for 18 months then reopen? Did he tell you about the great plan to grow IAH 787 in winter '15 then redeploy the whole fleet to West Coast 6 months later? With such a stellar track record there is no reason to doubt they have a clear big picture plan indicated by your inside source.