basically anybody can bid captain and they will hold your spot if you need to accumulate hours. The major change is that new hires can be forced into captain.

 

Ok. And if I'm less than 12 months/500 hours do I then become an "accelerated pilot" where I go to upgrade at 350 hours and do 100 hours UOE?

 

The company hasn’t exercised that option yet. So far you’d get the award and they’d hold your slot until you meet the requirements. At that point it’s just the standard 25 hours minimum for OE.

 

If you are awarded a captain spot as a new hire (initial class bid drop) then you will start being paid as a captain at 350 hours, but will still need to complete your full 500/off probation and you will get the standard amount of OE. The accelerated process is a clause that the company can, but has yet chosen to, exercise.

If awarded a captain vacancy during a bid while still on probation you will still need, as usual, to complete your 500 hours of time at UAL and get off probation.

You will eventually be tagged with an “imputed effective date”. This is the date where you complete probation and log 500 hours of flight time at UAL, whichever comes later. Then, at the start of the second bid period following your imputed effective date you will become pay protected at the captain rate.

Ex. You start class Oct 7, 2025 and get awarded a captain vacancy on the December bid. If you complete your 500 hours and complete probation on time, you will have an imputed effective date of Oct 7, 2026. You will start being paid as at the captain rate at the start of the December bid period - Even if you are still flying as an FO.

 

During a very short window in time (late '23 through early April '24 hires), we had new hires get CA slots in indoc. To my knowledge, nobody actually went to upgrade class after 350 hours, but they did start receiving CA pay at 350 hours.

However -- since the new hire CA phenomenon ended in April '24 (the last class to have NHCA slots was April 2, 2024) -- CA slots have gone WAY more senior. The current vacancy bid has the most junior NBCA at 61 pct system seniority. Lots and lots of senior FOs who delayed upgrade are now bidding for NBCA.

I' would be utterly astonished if we ever see CA slots being awarded in indoc ever again. We do have a large NBCA vacancy bid supposedly happening in November, and I can see upgrade dropping to maybe 2 years at that time. Which is of course ludicrously quick by any measure...

 

I second this.

I am around the 4 year mark, and have had my bid in for over a year locally in a junior hub and have not been able to hold it. Have been missing the back fill positions by thousands of numbers. I could have held it and commuted but I’d rather just wait. I have talked to a bunch of people in the same boat. Just speculating but my guess it will maybe go to 3ish years on property.

It sounds like this will be 737 heavy too, which is a bummer for us bus drivers.

 

and if it turns out his strategy is completely wrong, he still walks away with tens/hundreds of millions while the employees get crushed. Like betting it all on black in Vegas with no downside for him if it turns up red.

 

I think that's what we call capitalism...

 

fully agree.

 

Nothing like betting it on black and there is nine year track record with which to judge performance.

While you are here could you tell us how those 787 orders given the current backlog works?