Most Junior Captains
 

Would anyone be willing to post most junior captain for each base and equipment?

I can tell you right now that it’s pointless to even look at that. Going forward is going to be WAY different than what has happened.

Yup. We have plenty of CAs hitting the line who have been here 14 months. However that gravy train is long gone. Most junior NBCA in the last bid was, I think 5 years... someone who's better than I am at translating employee numbers to DOH can probably chime in...

the bid before this last one, captain went 1.5 years maybe 2, can’t really recall. This last bid was more seniority due to very few captain slots available on NB. Once deliveries pick up, I’m sure it will go down a bit, but not NH vaccines. Those days are long gone.

It was more like 4-4.5 years and it was a couple seats in Guam.

Stepping back a bit ... a lot has changed. Post covid United had mass-retired a bunch of very senior captains, was rapidly expanding its 737 fleet, and had reserve rules that many pilots disliked. Captain demand exceeded supply and it went very junior, so junior that a big part of the last contract negotiation was how new hires could be forced into captain against their will.

Things have changed. The new reserve rules are better liked and nobody can deliver new planes on time. Consequently, the company got the captains it needed and more. NBCA vacancies are very slim and going senior. The bid awards are showing 2025 weirdness, the seniority list are showing 2023 weirdness. It will take a few years to shake out and then presumably it might approach some sort of sustainable pattern ... which is very likely to be 5-10 years to captain and much longer to lineholding captain. There's really no reason a seniority based 30-year career would have people making captain shortly after hire.

ORD B737, date of hire late Oct 2023. Thirty more below him are still waiting to be trained.

well put but I disagree it’ll go to 5-10 years, based on retirements and deliveries which will pick up in the near future. There’s going to be senior people taking it on near term vacancies because of fear of missing out and lack of vacancies. After that I think you see it 2-3 upgrade. On the WB myself
and looking to go NBCA soon for change of scenery but now I can’t haha. Interestingly the vacancy input screen is open

I just don't see anyway the math supports that, other than a fluke in some growth years


For the next 5 years, retirements are 500-700 pilots. That is 3-4% of the current list. That's an attrition rate that would fit with a 25-30 year career. Just doesn't make sense that upgrade would consistently be available at 80-90% system seniority.

Well I’m just going to throw some made up numbers out, if we were single fleet like say SWA, there’s about 10-20% of the list that bypass upgrade and stay senior FOs. So instead of say 50/50 it’s more like sqy 60-70 % system seniority for junior captain . Now you add in widebody where there’s more FOs that captains, well there’s a lot of senior FOs on that which skews the number more. Now there are just more FOs than captains at United because of widebodies, but I would say 70-80% system seniority is where our true most junior captain would be. 80% of say 18,000 is 14,400. With no growth just retirement it would take 5-6 years . I think we are still on the up with deliveries .

Maybe someone that’s been here longer than me can say what the traditional system seniority was for most junior captain. But I’d guess 70-80% for first available isn’t far off