Corona/Max effects
 

As someone wading in the kiddie-pool, who is checking my email multiple times a day for a class date, what do those on the inside see or believe the real effects of the current COVID-19 and Max issues will be on future hiring (business as usual, short term hiring, a hiring pause, or dare I say the F word of which we do not speak?)

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Nobody knows, and if they say they know they are lying. There are too many moving parts at this point.

COVID-19 may be a temporary blip or it may cause a global recession.

The MAX **should** be flying later this year or it might not.

The stock market may crater or it might bounce to new highs.

Fuel prices are low but we know how that can change.

For now, UAL is doing exactly what they said we would do and are continuing to hire this spring but at a slower pace since we are mostly staffed for summer 2020. The plan is to rapidly spool up hiring once the MAX is fixed.

As we all know, the plan is always changing. But the good news is we have lots of retirements coming up. This will greatly mitigate the threat of the F word absent a real calamity.

EDIT: UAL just pulled its published 2020 investor guidance after the market closed today. "Beyond the first quarter, we believe the range of possible scenarios is too wide to provide earnings guidance at this time."

Full text: http://ir.united.com/node/23236/html

Pulling SEC guidance for 2020 can't be a good thing.

Are we seeing any movement in staffing, specifically in the 777/787 as these fleets are the most exposed? What is being done with crews that would have flown the cancelled pairings? Can't imagine they are getting paid to just sit home.

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2020 Guidance pulled. Asia traffic down 75%. Europe next? Who knows.

Have a plan B, C and D!

I do have B, working on C and D.

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If there's one thing the world's central bankers learned in 2009, it's that quantitative easing fixes every economic problem.

Actually, that's exactly what they are doing.

UAL is using some of the airplanes on domestic routes but those flights don't require 3 or 4 FOs so the fleets are overstaffed in the short term. That means there are more pilots than normal on reserve, but with fewer block hours combined with more pilots on reserve, the reserves are not being utilized at a normal level. So yes, there are guys at home getting paid.

Since pilots are only trained and current on one fleet type at a time it's not like UAL can have them fly A320s, for example, in the interim.

In the short term UAL will be offering reduced credit lines where pilots only receive 50 hours of pay but are OFF the entire month. For UAL it beats paying 73 hours for RSV pilots that are not used and there are pilots that are happy with reduced pay for known time off.

If this becomes a longer term problem UAL will displace pilots off those fleets but that will require lots of training ($$$) so UAL does not want to do that as the first step.

This is why everything is in limbo, nobody knows if this is short term or long term situation.

So would UAL continue to bring pilots onbaord if they are paying pilots to sit at home? Seems to me that everything, except building a pool, would be put on hold, but that is me on the outside looking in?

Thoughts from the inside?

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It all depends.

Economically, it would make total sense to hire pilots for the MAX deliveries **if** the widebody issue in the far east is considered temporary. UAL is constrained by a union contract with a seniority list. This is a good thing for both current and prospective pilots as the corporate economic decision matrix is quite different compared to a non-union airline.

It's the scenario where there's a global recession (including the USA) where hiring stops. Period.

One can also easily envision various plausible scenarios between the extremes.

Are you speculating or has this been announced?