Cozmo

How about Chicago or Denver? If I sucked it up and did a 2,000 mile commute for a year, could I reasonably hope to get a little closer?

Ni hao

Chicago and Denver hoover around 2 years to get into the base. Currently today and that's RSV. To be a line holder probably closer to 3-4 years. It does come down a little from time to time.

Duckdude

If you don’t commute reserve can be great. I bid it 3-4 months a year during the slow season (winter). Reserve is less fun when it gets really busy.

Cozmo

Last hope. IAD?

Real last hope. When I met with the CP in IAH, he agreed that there wasn’t much movement, but said something about new planes being based there? I wanna say the bombardier c-series, but I could be making that up entirely. That would theoretically open some slots there right? Anyone know anything about that?

CLazarus

Cozmo - I have a good friend who lives in TX and was a Nov 2016 hire, got on property not long before hiring came to a 12+ month standstill. He was able to bid into IAH from SFO a few months ago and finally was activated this month, so it took him a little under two years. Now that we have a steady stream of pilot retirements instead of fleet retirements, I think hiring will remain reasonably steady.

Meanwhile, I know two Jan 2018 hires who got SFO 737 out of training. Both of them have lines for September. One lives in DEN and one lives in IAH. If there is a sizable vacancy bid that includes a bunch of 737 FO slots in either location, I wouldn't be surprised if one or the other makes it into their desired base since they are both within striking distance now. And we are about due for a large bid sometime this fall. So, in that optimistic scenario it would be about a year from Indoc until activation in IAH/DEN. YMMV, especially if the economy tanks, but the outlook for getting to the base of your choice is not quite so bad as it has been made out to be here.

GoCats67

So, all the estimates/timelines that people are giving right now are based on what the last 2-3 years have shown. As with the stock market, that may not be a good predictor of the future.

In the last couple of years we have taken quite a few deliveries, but we also parked the 747 fleet. Removing the 747 was painful at best! From the pilot manpower perspective it also reduced the number of pilots we needed. When you remove that fleet you have less training and less total reserves for the two remaining fleets (777,787) than you had with all three. Yes the 777 and 787 pilot counts grew, but not by the total number that were on the 747 fleet, so the net effect was a downsizing in the middle of the seniority list and at the top. That has made the last couple years pretty slow on the pilot movement side at the bottom. When you couple that with a portion of the "new hire" pilots aren't actually new hires, but are furlough returns, you get an even more skewed movement pattern at the very bottom of the list.

On the good news front for the new hires as we go forward, the mess that removing the 747 created is now gone and we have not quite 200 remaining pilots on furlough bypass. Those pilots have 10 years to stay on bypass total, so the most junior of those pilots are facing their deadline as we speak and the most senior have until about this time next year. I absolutely welcome any of those furloughed folks back with open arms, but it seems that they are not coming back in huge numbers as the last few new hire classes have been higher percentages of new hires than furloughs. Time will tell, but certainly some of them will not return. Given the larger and more frequent new higher class sizes coupled with the dwindling number of remaining furloughees, it looks as though that effect on movement at the bottom of the list is almost behind us as well.


On the movement front as we go forward we have:

(Good News)

• Just over 400 retirements (9-1-18 thrh 8-31-19)
• Nine 787-10s coming between now and May 19
• One 777-300 coming this Fall
• Three 767-300 coming this Fall/Winter (Hawaiian Lease Returns)
• seven A-319s used coming in 2019 (China Southern returns)
• four 737 Max 9s still to come in 2018
• Fifty-one 737 Max 9s still remain on order with 2019-2020 deliveries
• One hundred 737 Max 10s orders, deliveries starting in 2020
• Economy/fuel price issues go well...

(Bad News)

1. An ordered airplane don't mean %$#@ until it is on your gate
2. if Age 65 changes those retirements get delayed....
3. Economy/fuel price issues go badly....

So, if the good news list happens and the bad news list doesn't, I think the movement that we will see in the next 12 months will result in dramatically better timelines for the movement needs of the junior parts of the seniority list than the last couple years have seen! Fortunately, the hiring has started already to make that type of movement seem much more likely.

spaaks

just passing along what i heard. Gotta consider his hogan was january, interview was april and he just got an august class. that's a long wait. delta was still running classes at the time i think. Can anyone confirm the pool is empty, are they offering class dates when they call after the interview?

T6 Pilot

I can verify that guys with interviews within the last 7 days are being told late Oct/early Nov classes...

ThumbsUp

Is there a consensus that at EWR the 320 is more junior than the 73? Heading to my new hire class next week and the printed bid guide showed the reverse, but I'm sure that was just a snapshot in time. I'll be commuting for at least the next several years so time to a line is the biggest factor for me at the moment (bus niceties vs 73 not-so-niceties aside)... Assuming after a while, I'll be able to bid IAD as it's a slightly shorter commute than EWR.

Hilltopper89

It is considerably more junior but it’s also very small comparatively. I’m 35% on the 73 but would be about 10% on the bus.