36 hours??? Maybe 35?

 

2 days. Well, if you read this tomorrow, 3 days.

 

Hahahaha well then… that answers that question. Thanks for the info. Going forward with the amount of upcoming retirements, would one expect reasonable movement and ability for a new hire to hold ORD early on. Someone mentioned a few posts back that someone hired now or in the near future should be able to hold ORD quickly. Is the ORD music expected to stop?

Currently a ULCC capt deciding whether or not to make a go for the little boy dream airline. The ability to hold ORD for the majority of my remaining years (about 27 left) would be a big determining factor. I truly love where I’m at, but lately I feel that I need to do myself the favor of at least researching the possibility. I call it “simply researching”. My wife is calling it a mid-life crisis…

 

im not saying this to be a smart ass it’s just the honest truth it straight chaos here with these bids. We will have hired 2000 from May 2021 to May2022. With early outs we only have 200 retirements next year. I think by next fall we won’t be seeing WB FO slots go unfilled or CA seats. However what will be Junior? Who knows.

right now every base is ubtainable on your first bid. Typically the music stops in IAH,DEN and ORD first though.

 

Glad your experience is good but life on reserve as a DCA 787 FO isn’t a good gig right now. And I live in base.

Under the min by almost double digits every single day of the month, some days have had ZERO reserves available. No Short Call’s ever posted in advance. Every day off (except of course HDO’s) this month and last has been rolled on me so far.

On the plus side, I’ve had one SC so far, and I’m sitting in LOS on an 85 hour layover right now, where we can’t leave the hotel. 😏Thankfully the entire crew is a lot of fun.

 

it’s hard to look at the current scenario and imagine Chicago being out of your reach for more than a few months at most. How long to upgrade, how long to hold a line, different question. But with the numbers they are hiring, it’s really hard to imagine narrowbody FO slots being restricted anywhere.

 

Isn't this what we are kind of doing already??

 

I don't think you came across as a smart ass at all. I appreciate the candidness. Despite how many people seem to feel right now, my contention has long been that getting hired at a legacy right now puts you well on the top of the hiring wave, and very likely closer to the back of the wave than the front. Most hired now would see rapid progression and a great first 4-5 years... right up until they quickly hit a wall - Where they may need to choose between eternal senior FO or eternal reserve capt and possibly commuting to a base they don't want. I'm really trying now to get realistic views on this and determine whether my suspicion is correct, or if it's just an excuse I made up in my head to not try to make the jump from where I'm at. From what I gather from your post, I may not be far off in my views.

Thank you for that. For you, MasterOfPuppets, or anyone else to answer: Realistically, how many years would it take for a narrowbody FO, living in base to be able to clear $200k annually? I know I can simply multiply hourly rate by min guarantee, but we all know there is more to it than that. As I previously said, I'm currently a ULCC captain and commuting, but hopefully will be able to transfer to my home domicile shortly (how long my home domicile will remain a domicile is unknown they way my shop has liked to pull out of expensive markets lately), about 27 years left to retire, married, two kids with number three on the way any day now, and with my airline's current order book, if things go anywhere close to planned, I will be in the top 20% seniority company wide by 2029. IF I decided to try to make the move I would want as little disruption to my current family life as possible. That may mean staying narrowbody FO in base for a bit and not chase commuting to widebody FO, bottom reserve widebody FO living in base, or bottom reserve captain. The other part of that disruption equation is income as my family currently knows it. We can always live on less if we had to, but doing it because I chose to is a different story which is why I posed the question of narrowbody FO income.

 

TogaLock,

while our retirements next year are lower due to the early outs, we start ramping them up again. 5313 by the end of 2031 (so an average of 531 per year for the next decade) with a high point of 706 in 2028. The hiring wave will be long absent any external events.

 

Nothing is certain but it looks like it will continue. We are parking 200 RJs and replacing them with mainline jets. The numbers of planes we get just in the next 3 years is the same number as Spirit and Frontier combined. This does not count unannounced widebody planes.

If you’re thinking of coming over, you better hurry up. Every week you wait you lose 40-50 seniority numbers. New hires from April already have 1,200 pilots junior to them and will be Captains next year.