The majority of new hires have been CAs elsewhere. Doing it in more austere locations with worse equipment.

Current book is 12 months and 500 hours.
TA is 350 hours plus 100 IOE hours. Which will easily take a year. That actually sounds like a safer outcome than current book.

The "safety" pearl clutching is over the top.

There are legit arguments against the new hire upgrades, but stop with “safety.” I’m sure all those senior WBFOs who are yelling about “unsafe” forced upgrades for new hires will be happy to make the airline “safer” and now bid NBCA. If it’s about safety then we should have forced upgrade for 20+ yr FOs instead of new hires, I’m sure they would be happy to make airline “safer.”

There’s a world of difference between a new hire who feels ready for the upgrade & one who does not. Some people are comfortable upgrading in a type they’ve never flown. Others want to get to know the airplane from the right seat for more or less time than is being offered them in this contract; but we’ve always given pilots the choice to determine when they felt ready & taking that choice away just knocks down the first major safety gate in the upgrade process. Also, since BI seniority goes by age, these forced assignments will be kicked down to the youngest, & therefore less experienced guys in every class. So enough with this “a lot of guys are coming in with great experience” line. These forced slots are not going to that Emirates WB captain or the ex mil guy with loads of global command time. They’re going to the kid who is still getting his bearings in the industry & didn’t ask to be running his own ship. If a NH asks for the seat & can pass the training course, fine. If he doesn’t, don’t put him in command is all I’m saying. Today’s new hire is less experienced- on average- than in the past. We should be mentoring these new guys by using QOL & pay improvements to entice experienced captains into showing them the ropes. Instead we’re forcing them to take command so we can hurry up & get our Delta rates. Weak.

It would be one thing if we were getting something out of this, but it’s baffling to me that so many are turning a blind eye to this issue in order to give something to the company. If we’re clutching pearls, some of you seem to be clutching those retro checks pretty tightly.

let me understand your thought process… it’s definitely ok IF we get something in return (Tumi suitcase maybe?) for codifying/allowing new hire Captain bids… but if we don’t get anything for selling them out it’s a serious safety issue? This is definitely going to be the quote of the day!

Will the forced upgrade apply to all FOs on property now, or new hire FOs going forward?

No, wouldn’t be ok with me either way but I’d at least understand why others were motivated to do it. As it is, some of you are tripping over yourselves to take concessions. Takes me back to the days of the COVID LOA. Old habits, I guess…

HS, can you imagine what would happen if there was a provision that forced WBFO’s into CA spots? There would be an absolute mutiny, people would burn the place to the ground.

just like Age 67….that’s just what everyone says….but we all know better.

new hires… earliest date 8/2024. Also, some poison pills built in that requires a huge list of contract implementations to be completed before the company can use the provision.

Call me a cynic if you will, but this whole thread is really much to do about absolutely completely nothing. First off as the OP stated this TA will pass with flying colors so the whole opening diatribe is nothing more than wasted electrons. Second, forced upgrades have yet to actually happen and my crystal ball predicts another Black Swan event will happen taking the industry backwards a few years (perhaps even the age 67 issue) and make upgrades more of a priority. Not to mention that the industry has had periods in the past where new pilots were low time and planes didn't start crashing every week.

I get that people like to argue on the internet these days, but this thread and the arguments seem a bit overblown to me.