Standards Meeting Notes
 

Kirby, Ankit, Quayle etc all spoke at the standards meeting. These were some of the high points.

Over 100 new planes will be delivered in 2026
A321XLR will arrive next summer and be doing International by Q4 2026. Will add a bunch of new EUR destinations with it.
400+ new CA vacancies just from October - December
Hiring will be at least 2,400 for 2026. Will hire more if they can. Limiting factor is hotel rooms available in Denver. This is why hiring is ramping up now instead of November.
Will break 20,000 pilots in mid 2026.
Retirements increase from 450 a year to over 600 a year until 2029 when it will start declining to about 400 a year.
787 deliveries will be deployed to LAX/SFO/EWR for growth except SFO 777 routes will be replaced by 787 as some 777s redeployed to EWR/IAD.
787 deliveries to go to 2 a month starting in January.
777 will grow in IAD and EWR.
756 will grow in IAD and EWR as planes are moved from west coast.
767-300 to do another round of heavy checks and remain on property until early 2030s.
Large 737 CA vacancies will be in LAX/SFO/EWR starting in November.
ORD will go to 600 departures a day. DEN/IAH will likely be 550-580 departures a day. They will become super hubs. AA might have to de-hub ORD.
MAX-10s are delayed until 2027 so we will keep converting MAX-10 to 9s to keep flow of planes coming. No longer MAX-10 launch customer because of delays.
IAD to double International capacity as we add 14 more International gates there.
Not looking to buy any other airlines or used planes but always looking for slots/gates at every airport. Will focus on United Next and new deliveries.
A-350 is still an option. the Rolls Royce engines are a smoking deal now and RR wants to buy UA out of the contract. Will decide by Q4 2025 on 777 replacement.
They are working on more JFK slots in addition to ones we will get from Jetblue. Would like 20 daily slots total there if we can get them.

You forgot “We’re the young lions. Delta is the old grizzly lion out there, so we don’t directly compete often. Mainly it’s because AA and SWA are limping gazelles and it’s easier to eat them up”

Ok, taking a mental note for next summer to revisit this thread and see how much of this turned out to be right.

They going to keep shrinking MCO?

To think any competitor is a “limping gazelle” when this industry has and will shove its size 16 boot up your rear at a moments notice is a bold statement. If anyone is buying this sunshine and rainbows forecast… get that furlough fund ready, live below your means, and make hay while the sun is shining.

These are not my predictions. This is the plan from senior management. Me being "right" isn't the question. The people pulling all the levers are saying this. So far they've been pretty accurate, including being exactly correct with 2025 aircraft deliveries and retirements.

Thanks Friendly for your reporting.

I think we all know this is the “American Football Huddle”…. Who knows if the play is executed as planned…..but it sounds like a good play to me.

Oh I know. I didn't say it was you saying jt, it was what you passed along. The whole United Next thing has been a moving target and there have been a lot of numbers over the last several years. 25k pilots, 28k pilots, etc.

My point was that this seems to be a more granular and specific strategy for the next year and it will be interesting to see if they can execute as advertised. Obviously I'd love it if they did and so would every other pilot on property.

I'm sure JBU would be willing to deal on those JFK gates for the right amount of money considering their current financial woes.

What are the specific rules for bidding captain under the new contract? If there are unfilled vacancies then people with less that 12 month/500 hours can be awarded? Is that right?

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?

We just had a bid in February of this year where pilots under 3 years were getting Airbus CA, and it wasn't even a very big bid. Also we haven't had a Narrowbody bid since then, only a couple backfills, so to say "its gone senior" isn't really accurate since when you only have one backfill and its someone with 7,000 seniority number that's because its only one person so it isn't a fair picture of actual seniority.

Ever wonder if American was American despite of him or if he brought American to United?

It's really a semantic difference. It doesn't matter whether it's because we haven't had many NBCA vacancies recently or because more senior people are bidding it. The end result is the same: nobody in a new hire class (like BusBoi) should realistically be thinking they're going to snag a CA slot in indoc. That ship has sailed. (I missed it by one week lol).

It's anybody's guess whether the next NBCA bid will see those slots going to people with 2, 3, 4, or more years on property. The current snapshot reflects the FOMO we keep mentioning -- the very large number of senior FOs who delayed jumping the trash bag because they figured NBCA would always be available. When that dried up, it left a lot of them stuck in the right seat. In recent months as the new hire CAs finished upgrade training and started flying, a lot of those senior FOs wound up flying with people *way* junior to them.

And so I think you're going to continue to see a lot of those guys bidding NBCA in every foreseeable vacancy bid until they are awarded it. I can literally name 8 of my friends whom this describes perfectly, and that's just *one* BES I'm talking about, let alone all of our NB bases and aircraft types.

Regardless, though -- it's still incredible and unprecedented movement.

If you listen to Kirby on podcasts he wasn't allowed to implement hardly anything over there. Almost every time he tried to make a difference, he was shot down by Parker. American would be a much different airline right now if they had just let Kirby run it.

Yes, but their call sign would be "Cactus"

Without getting into details…… yup !

In addition to the previous responses, I'll add that this scenario is fairly unlikely in your time horizon. You'll more than likely get both the hours and the time before you'll get awarded a vacancy.

that bid was the largest 320 ca bid i think we have ever had. It was definetly not the norm. 80 ca 320 in ord?? Not the norm.

Just curious, I am aware that new hires were being awarded NB CA in indoc - but why? Is there a sizable cadre of lifetime FOs or is there something else?

I don’t think you’ve read any of what Adam Smith actually wrote. Or maybe you’re being sarcastic.

But to suggest our system is “capitalism” is hilarious. Our government picks winners and losers all the time. The amount of government intervention in our system doesn’t resemble capitalism in any sense of what that word means. We also don’t have free markets. Which for our industry a good thing. See cabotage.

But I generally agree with your sentiment that a golden parachute for a CEO that destroys a company brings to mind the “moral hazard” term that became so popular after the 2008 financial crisis. Negligence and crooked practices should be punished.

I certainly prefer our system to whatever you want to call China or even European countries and Canada have.

75% of the answer is probably the covid retirements / massive hiring wave whiplash. United retired a huge group of senior captains and then needed a bunch of junior ones RIGHT NOW.

In particular they needed them in EWR and SFO, high cost of living, high index of frustration airports.

A senior WBFO (or even a very senior NBFO) could work the system and make something close to what a captain on reserve would make

United, under the previous contract, that allowed extensive (?unlinited) short calls and field standby. Many people avoided reserve at all costs.

UPA23 seemed to fix the problem, or fix it enough. Time probably helped as well as more people naturally came to a point in their life they wanted to upgrade.

I’ll add two more possible/likely reasons that people may not have upgraded then but will now:

1. It happened really fast. People have lives, families, commitments, etc. and sometimes you put things off to accommodate those.

2. A year ago, if a 3-4 year FO upgraded, they’d be bottom of the CA list for a year with lousy schedules, Feb vacation and all that. If they upgrade now they slot in ahead of all the NH/Indoc guys and in many bases can walk right in at 60-70% on the CA list.

One sure way for management to serve Koolaid to the masses is to offer it up to LCPs first. They never fail to pass it along as gospel.

Because NB flying sucks, and it’s even worse on reserve.

A WBFO, especially on the west coast can make the same amount of money and have 5 or more days off per month. Even a bad schedule is still better and more productive than the best NB schedule.

That's YOUR reason why, not the actual reason. A lot of the classes in 2021 - 2022 had half the new FOs get forced into the 756 and 777.

Clearly people were not bidding the WB FO slots OR the NB CA slots. I think the most accurate take I've heard or seen on this was that the reserve rules in general were so bad that nobody wanted to be on reserve, even on the WB. That has since changed with the limitation of SCs and elimination of FSB. It stands to reason that it was even worse w WB FO with RDOs, which is why there were so many vacancies.

As we know, post-contract, WB FO has gone senior. Between pay and reserve rule improvements, this is unsurprising.

That’s the beauty of working for a company with a mixture flying types. Since what sucks and what doesn’t is purely subjective, there’s something for everyone. I think that anything that has me on duty between 0000-0600 sucks. Others think that NB does. Choices are nice, and for someone who avoids ANF at all cost, I’m glad we have such a large WB schedule that goes senior. Guys like me get artificial seniority from senior people chasing the international flying.

yeah really, after nothing but bad news the last few years at NK it’s nice to be on the winning team for once.

It's not that, it is their not so well hidden hope of the demise and failure of other airlines. Kirby even brags about it every time he does an interview. Karama is a B

Looking at your post history, there was no mention of Frankie or Biffle’s hope of NK’s demise. They did mention that and they certainly do hope for it. Because whether you hate UA or not, F9 has more to gain by NK being gone.

You’re angry at the wrong team. Probably should redirect that energy somewhere else… or turn it into something positive like an app to another carrier before it’s too late

Just like you hope for the demise of Kirby/UA in about every other post..? kArMA iS a B!tCH rinse and repeat with you. He’s arrogant for sure - similar to how you come across. The difference is he’s the CEO of - for now - a very successful airline. Maybe focus on your CEO and giving him pointers from your laser-sharp mind. We all get it. Kirby sucks, UA sucks. Everything bad in the world came from DEI and your boy Kirby. Just be glad you don’t have to be part of a POS, virtue-signaling bunch like UA, and you can enjoy being part of the “fAAmily” 🤢🤣🤣🤣