Not enough co-pilots

It appears as though the company is planning on the pilot group flying allot of "over time" in the form of premium pay trips. That just might be their business plan.

Also, it may be baked into the cake that management doesn't believe in the impending doom and gloom of the so-called pilot shortage. If they aren't jumping through hoops into hiring mode, then they believe there will be no shortage of qualified applicants.

Exactly. We are staffing "internally" because some BES's are still overstaffed and "Jeffed" up.

So what your saying is those of us hired in past 12-14 months are Fcd! No movement and RSV forever. While Delta has 2 year upgrades :D

Personal opinion - I don't think so at all and I think MoP is right. Definitely not endless stagnation if jr in jr bases on the narrow body side.

On the plus side we managed reasonable but not earth shattering 2017 profit despite having this "fat" to trim plus the big cost of the IAH hurricane. Factor in Kirby's planned annual growth for the next 3 years and what appears to be some network vision and the trimming won't take very long and we're in better shape going forward.

Not trying to put on the rose colored glasses but there's a lot of good here.

Ways to save money in Contract '18??? :)

Remember the furlough mitigation LOA? That was a scope relief LOA disguised as furlough mitigation. It was a back-room deal done by the scheduling chair who wasn't even a member of the NC. Then, a motion to go into exeucutive session to consider. Our current contract was public knowledge, our scope language was public knowledge, and so was the company's intent to furlough 147 pilots.

Why the need to consider the joint venture (scope relief) LOA in executive session? why not give it to the reps to take home and read through, and why not show it to the entire pilot group out in the open?

It wasn't about saving money in contract '02. It was about saving face. Company held those pilots hostage not the union. The company then creatively devised a plan to release the hostages they took and asked the union to pull the trigger on it in secret (executive session). Let's see, we can pull the pin on the hand-grenade that destroys the profession for all, or we can pull the trigger on the gun that shoots 147 pilots in the head.

What a splendid furlough adventure and what glorious additional flying opportunities there were. Funny, those management pilots never worked so hard in their entire lives....

They don't have 2 years upgrades at DAL. They have a few fleets/seats that are so unpleasant to fly that only the young, petulant, and greedy are silly enough to bid them.

If you are a new hire, now is the time to switch teams. Don't wait. Go to DAL now and be a JFK mad dog Captain in under 2 years.

Even so, my close friend upgraded to 717 Captain in a little over 3 years. I’d still call that quick.

Transitory only. 3 years from now, the Jr Captain at DAL might have 15 years seniority. I have seen this movie before. This is my 3rd showing.