This is a nice utopian thought but how would this work, would we need a minimum monthly check from the government to bring everyone in America to comfortable middle-class income levels?

Travel returns to normal at the end of the 2020 Summer???

 

thanks, meant to type, “starts to return to normal...”

 

I hope seat freeze, natural retirement attrition and early out offers are a big part of this decision (to F). Minimizing the Training footprint will be massive savings. Things have rounded the corner too.

Anyone wanna take a wag at what seat percent we need to float indefinitely and get back cash burn balance? I’m gonna say 70% gets us even +/- 10% and the cargo revenue wildcard.

 

You guys are still doing the math with pre-corona numbers. The TK training limitations don't mean a thing when you just need 1/10 of the current Pilots to fly the schedule. 1500 come October, another 1500 when the displacement training takes hold, and another 1000 in the spring depending on if the recovery can support it. With the Max coming back the Bus fleet will be gone too.

Get your house in order NOW.

If I'm wrong then it'll be that much better, but you can't have everyone say that retirements will take care of it. We have about 600 retirements between now and the end of next year. It's been said that this is 10 times worse than 9/11 and you guys expect numbers lower than 9/11? Because of 600 retirements and TK limitations? Y'all are just kidding yourselves.

 

If we furlough 4000 we wouldn’t be able to be at 80% staffing for summer of 2023. You are way off, stop the fear mongering.

 

So 4000 by next summer? I'll take the under on that bet, please. The only way it gets to 4000 that quickly is if the real number is 13000.

The training throughput is limited by the availability of sims and instructors, and not just the number of pilots available for training or required on the line. If UAL lets go that many pilots that quickly then they also wipe out a huge swath of the instructor pool. And replacement instructors are not as quick to qualify as line crews. It's a huge game a chess anytime the company wants to either dramatically grow or reduce the pilot group. Cut too deeply, too quickly and the ability to furlough actually decreases.

But, yes, I totally agree that everybody should make sure their house is in order. This will eventually impact everybody on the seniority list.

 

All of these estimations seem to be based on things returning to what they were pre-virus. Things could be like they were, or they could be very different. We may no longer operate 6 flights a day to LHR on the 756 like we did before, it could be fewer flights on bigger airplanes. They could decide that it would be better to let some international slots go and make fewer trips with bigger planes. If they use this to change how we do business, staffing levels would change too. We’re just along for the ride.

 

They are not going to keep 4000 pilots around they don't need until 2023. Stop the reassuring. It took airlines more than 3 years to recover from 9/11. This stupid virus is way worse. Not only will there be big time furloughs, but big time pay cuts. Or you can pretend all will be fine in a few months.

 

Again you're betting on the all, every bit, of flying to return by then, if so, GREAT! But for some of these guys it's their first rodeo and the forums aren't doing them any favors with lowballing numbers. I heard of so many guys buying that million dollar house with Porsche's in the garage.

The cars should be for sale and the house refinanced or sold.

 

Problem is with fear mongers like you is you equate a 30% reduction in manning with a 30% reduction in pilots. That's not how it works. If you are trying to reduce manning by 30%:

13000 pilots at 82 hours is 1.066M hours
10500 pilots at 70hrs MPG is 735,000

You got your 30% reduction with a 19% reduction in pilots while not needing to amend the UPA, and have the flexibility to staff for future summers 3-5 years down the line. Fear mongers like you will convince others in the group your numbers are a possibility and we need to take concessions to mitigate the amount of guys on the street, while data driven people know in reality they can't afford to cut as deep as you suggest, so no concessions are needed. They will not dig themselves in as deep of a hole as you think. Next year will suck, and we will be overstaffed, and everyone knows it, but they aren't going to cut 1/3 of the pilots to fix it.