Hiring to Increase
 

From the MEC Update:

“New hire classes run weekly with the target of 65-75 pilots per class. The company plans to increase this number.”

Heard the new hire classrooms in the new H building can hold 150 pilots. It will be interesting to see what happens at other airlines as we hire many of their pilots away from them. I’m hearing stories from FOs about their friends at “Brand X” that were given a job offer but ended up turning it down because they didn’t want to “give up seniority” whatever that is supposed to mean. Not sure that the some of the other airlines will be able to staff their deliveries if we hire even more of their pilots than we currently are.

Seems like a lot of hype. Last I read the FAA is making all the airlines cut capacity at the 3 New York airport's because they don't have enough controllers. Can the infrastructure even handle all this UAL growth?

Read their post history. Obviously it’s a management hype-man or massive kool-aid drinker. Conveniently recent huge vacancies and this gets dropped after another disappointing update message from UA ALPA to it’s members. They use this to distract from the TA they’re currently negotiating, which is total garbage.

It’s becoming more apparent we’ll have to rely on AA for pattern bargaining.

Not sure how United is going to staff deliveries with so many unfilled CA vacancies…

You know United has other pilot bases, right?

This is a legitimate concern. It likely gets solved with improved reserve rules with a new contract. Otherwise there is going to be a lot of Premium Pay trips this summer for guppy Captains.

I do. I also know that it seems like the aerospace system can only handle a certain amount of planes flying around. So based on what your saying is that United's growth plan in the next five years will almost be like adding another airline to the system the size of SWA. Maybe it will happen, but the system seems overwhelmed in it's current state

If you look at United's "United Next" plan here:
https://ir.united.com/static-files/0...1-720e3d8d0e82

The plan is to up gauge aircraft.
"United Next will retire 200+ single cabin jets by 2026."
"Midwest hub departures on single-cabin regional jets: (ORD = 42%, but will be 4% estimated by 2026)
"Overall, single-class regional jets will go from 33% of North American departures to ~10%"
"Average domestic gauge grows by ~30 seats" (by 2026)
"‘United Next’ growth will primarily come from gauge"
"New generation large narrowbody aircraft provide significant fuel burn reduction": Fuel cost per seat (700 mile stage length) = $36 (50 seat RJ) vs $16 (MAX9)
"Newer aircraft are at least 50% more fuel efficient per seat than our least efficient fleets"


As NB aircraft are added, regional jets will be removed.

You know that we have 600 RJs that we are replacing with mainline planes, right? We will only fly 160 RJs by 2028 and the other 440 planes will be mainline. So 1 RJ job for 1 mainline United job.

That makes more sense. I guess the only constraint will be getting the next generation motivated to pursue a flying career.

It’s just that simple. 1 RJ (50 available seats) for 1 MAX (150+ available seats). That would require them to triple the their ticket sales to reach high load factors for said route.

I’ll more interested in how they’re going to fill those seats at a $ premium utilizing the hub and spoke model. It will be fun to watch United Next from the sideline if what you’re stating is accurate.

I think it’s more accurate to assume some of those new mainliners will be replacing the older mainline fleet. RJ flying is going away with or without mainline replacements. If you assume the majority will be replacements of newer mainline aircraft with older mainline aircraft the “gauge grows by 30 seats” projection sounds accurate to me.


Post edit.
After reading through the United next slides, specifically slide 34 quotes, “From 2023-2026 up to 275 aircraft can be retired, driving fuel efficiency and improved CASM-ex”

Where are you gathering 440 mainline aircraft replacing 440 RJ’s from FriendlyPilot?

‘Keep in mind that United is behind AA and DL when it comes to domestic capacity. United hubs domestically are under developed considering they do not have a fortress hub with scale similar to DFW, ATL, CLT…. This is due to Jeff Smisek shrinking domestic capacity after the merger when Delta grew domestically and upgauged their network with AA following behind. This is a issue that SK is now trying to resolve. There’s organic growth that the network can and will absorb. Then there will be some gauge growth that trickles down. Not all city pairs who were served with single class RJs will see upguaging as some will or have been cut. But there’s validity with single class RJs being upgauged to 76 seaters and 76 seaters going to A319s/737-700s, etc. We are seeing it with EWR currently. To your second point, I also believe that some of the older A/C will be replaced with new a/c. Also keep in mind, a lot of United NB fleet isn’t terribly old as they have received a good chunk of the 739ERs within the last decade. But we do have a lot of Airbuses, 737s, and 757s/767s that were acquired pre-merger that will be replaced.

Think of it as consolidation and frequency reduction. At those costs per seat in the United Next slides, you can run, on a 700 mile stage length, 2 737 MAX9 (179 seats) for $5,728 vs 3 RJ (50 seats) for $5,400.

Reducing frequency to 2 737 flights vs 3 RJ flights will result in having 358 seats traveling vs 150 seats for only $328 more. Right now, RJs fly to many cities that will probably just lose service.

Think KBIS. It has KDVL, KJMS, KMOT and KDIK within about 100 mile radius. RJs go to KDVL, KJMS, KMOT and KDIK and historically were going to KBIS too. Simply consolidate all that flying into/out of KBIS and run 2-3 737s a day vs RJs to the rest. This will naturally help the pilot shortage as well.


If it's a different market, with price per seat at $16 vs $36, you can run a MAX9 @ a much reduced capacity (same ticket prices) and still break even or generate a profit. Or you can use the extra seats for pricing power.

Instead of selling 50 RJ seats at $40 a piece ($2,000 revenue to offset $1800 cost), you can price the seats at $35 (grab market share) on a 737 MAX9. Cost is $2864 to run a 737 MAX9 so you only have to sell 82 of the 179 seats (46% capacity) to generate enough revenue to cover cost. After that, each of the additional 97 seats are pure profit at $35/seat. This does not count any of the 20 First Class seat premium revenues per 737 MAX9 that are now available for sale that were not available on a 50 seat RJ.