covering multiple airports also a theme for disfavored bases

 

Kirby recently stated that 40-60% of the new aircraft ordered are for growth of mainline with the 50 seaters being the immediate target for retirement.

from the CrankyFlyer podcast:The 500 aircraft order — 200-300 of those will be, in a chain event, replacements for 50-seaters. There are fewer and fewer markets for which regional airlines are going to work. As soon as a low cost carrier goes in and cuts the prices in half, the break-even load factor on our regional becomes 160%. They're just not gonna work.


and the entire 756 fleet will not be gone by 2024. We don’t start getting 321Neo’s/Max10 (if it ever gets certified) until 2023. the XLR is to replace the 757-200’s on international routes and those don’t come until 2024. The 767-300/400 have no planned replacements as of now, and with them having gotten nose to tail refurbs (767-400 is supposed to start getting Polaris next year) they aren’t going to be retired anytime soon except for some cataclysmic event due to the money invested and being paid off. Yes maintenance costs get higher but their operating trip cost is competitive across the Atlantic.

Will older aircraft be retired over the next decade? Sure. But there isn’t going to be a large parking of aircraft just because new ones are arriving in 2023.

 

my fleet and base doesn’t hardly ever have fsb, but I pick up a sc at the beginning of my week to drop me down to the bottom, that will get me thru about 2 weeks and then I have to pickup another. Works pretty well, I live 1 hour from the airport so the only thing the sc impacts is my beer drinking.

 

Very true, as a commuter that sounds awful. If you’re willing to make the big leap and move here, it’s not a bad deal. I’d rather fly a SJC trip any day, no crossing a bridge, princess parking and an extra few bucks.

Median home price in Sac is $510k, and, without looking, I’m sure most everything else along the 80 corridor is similar. Taking upgrade early and all that premium more than offsets my tax bill and extra cost of living, so the math says I still come out ahead. BUT my effective tax rate for 2020 will still be about 8.2%, I just drove past $4.89 regular unleaded and the reason bacon is now so expensive for everyone is because the voters just voted in some extra square footage for hogs.

My sanity? Well, remains to be seen.

 

Whats the largest seniority #, AKA how many pilots in system have as of today?

 

Here’s the summary of the vacancy bid.
1,241 total bids not filled
133 unfilled CAPTAIN bids in LAX, SFO, DCA, EWR.
170 unfilled 777/787 FO in SFO, DCA, EWR
2 year Captains in DEN (used to be 2 years just to get FO in Denver)

Another bid supposed to be out in January or February.
New hires to likely be awarded 787/777 FO in new hire training.
Everyone with 500 hours on property and off probation can hold Captain.
In 2023 alone we take on 157 new airplanes, the same number that Spirit Airlines has.
None of this counts 787 deliveries not announced because of the delivery pause at Boeing.

Any ideas how we get out of this pilot shortage? I can’t imagine this doesn’t affect other airlines significantly in the next couple years as we hire their pilots


Lots of great info here. I'm hoping to get to and live in ORD...what's the deal there? It's the "Head Quarters" and one of the biggest/busiest airports but it seems like United is flying less and less out of there. Are they going to expand as the airport expands?

Just curious what the longer-term ORD prospects are, since that's where I want to end up.

Thanks!
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Lots of unfilled vacancies for ORD on this bid. ORD is fairly senior but this bid had more Chicago bids than I've seen in a while/ever. Usually ORD doesn't have many if any unfilled vacancies but we had quite a few this bid. 7 on the 756, 33 Airbus and 52 Guppy. If you want ORD and are on property or will be soon, you'll have little to no trouble getting it in training or shortly thereafter.

 

13833... got ORD 756 FO off the vacancy award.

 

That seniority number on the list is not an indication of “active pilots”. Our seniority numbers are issued once a year on July 1st, and we keep that number throughout the year. So pilots who retire after July 1st are still taking up a spot, even though the are retired. Also every pilot who took the early out is also showing on that list.

Not to mention we have 330 pilots who are showing up on that list on a leave of absence because they did not comply with the ineffective inoculation mandate that doesn’t even stop the virus from spreading.

We are probably at 12,600 actual pilots, with the early retirements and retirements since July 1st plus the 330.

 

How long has that person been on property with that number?