Originally Posted by Macdacpilot

Steering back toward the original topic of the vacancy bid...does anyone think the fact that there are 10 unfilled slots to GUM and that new hires will be most likely be placed there will impact those who want to apply/work at United?

Originally Posted by UALinIAH

If we were concerned about max people at top rate we’d have a single CA pay scale like UPS.

Originally Posted by elps

A payscale like UPS based only on seat and seniority makes much more sense with today's aircraft.

I get that at one time there was a "productivity" argument for paying more for aircraft with more seats, but when there's a 147-seat spread between aircraft in the same pay band and a 22-seat spread between aircraft in different pay bands, the argument obviously falls flat.

Originally Posted by Fr8Thrust

I hope they never force-fill GUM positions. In this climate, I’m sure that would lead to folks resigning. Not even FedEx staffs HKG/CGN like that.

Originally Posted by pilotgolfer

It would be short sighted for someone to make such a dramatic career decision over a temporary problem. With the movement going on now, even if someone were forced to go fly at 2nd year pay...they could undoubtedly bid out before ever getting on the plane to Guam.

Originally Posted by Fr8Thrust

Good point that you could bid out of it. If that’s the case, then hopefully crew planning recognizes that the majority they force there (if so) will bid-out before hitting the line, which doesn’t solve their shortage.

GUM might work for some, but when every major is hiring right now (and regionals pay decent money) if you have a life stateside, it’s probably not in your interest to relocate to a remote pacific island. It would be different if it was a city, like FRA HKG HND.

Do they ever offer GUM TDY? I bet people would be all over that option!

Originally Posted by GoCats67

That certainly has been the trend. They have added a second class to each of the last several months and have now done so for Nov and Dec as well.

In the communications from Manpower Planning, they have said on multiple occasions that they are attempting to fill every training slot that the Training Center can handle as we go forward. So, each vacancy bid is both targeting the long term plan of the summer of 2019 staffing needs as well as the short term plan of what training slots do they have available. The current bid was reported as smaller as it is intended to fill the remaining open training slots in January. In the same communication it said to expect another vacancy bid in December that would be larger and that they hoped to be able to communicate the summer of 2019 international allocation chart. This is just a list of what aircraft will be flying what routes for the summer of 2019 out of all the hubs, but is more important this time as we will receive 9 787-10s before then and they will (apparently) make up a good portion (or maybe all) of the flying out of the new 787 domicile in EWR. Whatever they use those new aircraft on it will certainly have a ripple effect across EWR intl and potentially elsewhere. Hopefully it will also be timed with some new route announcements!!!

Either way, I would be surprised if we don't continue with at least 2 new hire classes a month. The trend has been to wait until somewhat close in to announce the second class, but I don't think that matters much to the process of actually offering a class to a new hire, as we still have pilots on furlough-bypass for another 10 or so months that have up until 30 days prior to the class to notify UA of their intention to return, so no new-hire will get the offer of a class until 30 days out anyway.

Originally Posted by STXDrew

Just started instructor training on the guppy/737 at the FTC. We have been told to expect 12-13 new hire classes between now and summer 2019.

Take that with a grain of salt, just passing the message along

Originally Posted by Fr8Thrust

...Do they ever offer GUM TDY? I bet people would be all over that option!

Originally Posted by oldmako

Sign me up.