That’s directed squarely at the person asking the question. In his 40’s, unless they offer the entire class captains bids, he’s not the one likely to get it. People his age are no longer in the bottom half of classes.

 

THey could very easily do that. Particularly if classes are segregated by captain eligibility

 

They could, although, I think it’s very unlikely to revamp the whole hiring construct, release all of the eligible from seat locks, etc. It’s a lot to get there.

 

I'm a little more bullish on the futures of DEN, IAH, and (to a lesser extent) ORD than some of you.

Sure, I expect they will try to push some more flying back to the coasts, but the reality is those bases are not capable of handling the growth we're projecting. Naturally, that growth isn't a thing until it is, but for the purposes of this post I'm going to assume that United Next, to some substantial degree, plays out the way management intends it to.

There are bases that are capable of handling more growth and bases that aren't. We all know EWR isn't, and the company has already acknowledged that. EWR will always be a major player for us because we can't just ignore the largest O&D market in the country, but I would be very surprised if it were ever much larger than it is right now. It just isn't reliable enough; its problems create massive headaches for the rest of the operation with increasing frequency.

SFO, in my admittedly limited experience out there, also doesn't seem to be capable of considerably more flights than it has now. It's space-constrained in much the same way EWR is.

So where will all these new planes (and their crews) wind up? The places that have the space to absorb them, namely DEN and IAH. Especially as the regional flying diminishes, both airports can fairly easily take on additional mainline flying, even if it means repurposing some of the gates currently allocated to RJs. The new D pier with CBP access slated to open sometime in the next 6-12 months, which, while shared use, would give United increased access to international options. They're already in the design phase for renovating (reviving?) the north B gates for mainline aircraft.

Everything involved will take time, but I suspect when the dust settles IAH and DEN, along with IAD, will see significant growth in the next 5-7 years.

 

There’s actually a very robust long term (10 or so year plan coincidentally) growth strategy for EWR. Includes demolishing the Budweiser brewery, Marriott, and a bunch of other stuff, building at least one more runway to the west, and a huge mega terminal with tons of gates on that side. The market would absolutely support it.

 

The market will absolutely support it, but that plan will take at least 10 years to get off the ground, and another 10 to build out, in my opinion. There is a near limitless amount of red tape. And I guarantee that they (United management) are not staffing for that eventuality (if that's what it winds up being).

 

growth and pilot staffing in a base are completely unrelated.

did 737 departures in IAH grow proportionally with the growth of the BES? Not even close. They just rearranged the deck chairs to get people to upgrade on IAH. That can be reversed easily and likely will be as they need to fill coastal demand?

 

I’m….Ron Burgundy?

 

Again I say aspirational, not contractual. You’re concluding it’s unlikely the company will do something this contract gives them every ability to do based solely on you not thinking they’ll do it. It would be fairer to say it may happen & it may not. We simply don’t know, but once this passes, we have no ability to influence that outcome.

This is the evolution of a bad contractual change. It starts with “The union would never agree to that.” Then it’s “The union agreed to it but the company won’t actually do it.” Then, “They’ll do it, but it will be rare.” And finally, “If people don’t like it, they can go to Delta.”

 

No, that’s not it at. I don’t think that every class will be 100% 8-f-12 slots. As soon as that word got out, recruiting would fall into the dumpster. We’re already the QOL laggard for new hires. If the company doesn’t realize that now, they soon would after pulling the trigger.