Its a monthly vacancy bid. Nobody ever said this was the last bid for a year. They even said in previous crew resources updates that WBCA would have continuing bids and expect another large bid in December. We are taking delivery of 128 planes in 2026, plus the planes that are being delivered between now and the end of 2025 and we have 450 retirements to cover.

Also in the July CRU they said that they expect to have NBCA to not be completed until March for the summer of 2026. We will need more even after March to staff new planes and prepare for fall and winter 2026. So we clearly have more bids coming. I don't know where the "this is the last bid until Summer 2026" came from. This week's new hire class was 77 pilots.

Everyone needs to chill out and not to try translate the Crew Resources Update into some bad news. 800+ pilots in a single bid is pretty large, considering we had a bid in September and will likely have them for the next few months as well. Also the Crew Update said this bid "prepares" the pipeline from Summer demand, not that this is it until the summer. Not sure how we can take all those planes, backfill retirements and WBCA and only have 200 CA bids between now and the summer.

 

Seems huge to me.

 

I'm finding most of the WBFO I fly with that are 2021-2024 hires are mostly in their 40s and 50s. Former military retirees, people that spent 10+ years at a regional, people that left other Majors, and not just Spirit and Frontier. This idea that all the 2021-2024 hires were "in their 20s" is ridiculous. Yes I've flown with some mid 20s, and they will have an amazing career. But we will have over 220 787s by 2032 and with the 400-700 pilots retiring a year for many years there will be plenty of movement.

I think every pilot hired under 40 will most certainly be a WBCA. Far better chance of happening at United than being hired at 40 at any other US airline.

 

TK can't handle a massive training wave of Captains while at the same time having to train 200+ new hires a month in the NBFO seats. There isn't enough capacity. Regardless of what interpreted you are correct that "it doesn't make a ton of sense". Which it doesn't.

This is a poorly worded communication from crew resources fueled by pilots who blew it out of proportion.

 

That’s pretty much exactly what they said. They spent a long time explaining why there was not an October bid and how they were shifting strategy to offer all narrow body captain bids for the upcoming year in a single bolus.

i agree - it’s fine. But they set expectations different from what they did

 

They can only train so many in a given period of time and there will be other bids considering how many deliveries we have scheduled and planned hiring. Given that, I’d say that this one is a pretty good start.

 

the “bottom of the barrel” comment was in reference to the quick upgrades. Those 1-2 year captains will not see an increase in seniority with new hires with respect to their fleet/seat and will most likely get pushed down the list as senior pilot bid in on top of them,

 

They never said "all narrowbody captain bids for the year in a single bid". In bold letters they said they expect the November 737 bid to be "the largest B737 vacancy offering" but not the only one for a year. They said there would be "another" large NB CA bid and those two bids would be "a majority" of CA bids for 2026. All in the October CRU.

Clearly 200 NBCA is not going to fill training for a year with our delivery schedule.

 

we have 5114 pilots under the age of 40

we have 2591 pilots under the age of 35

we have 755 pilots under the age of 30

we currently have 1552 WB CAs between the 777/787.

The vast majority of the pilots under the age of 35 were hired in the last 4 years and nearly all the pilots under 30.

so my point stands and I believe your optimism is getting the best of you right now. If you are hired over the age of 35 today your chances of seeing WB CA are diminishing rapidly. And if you are hired over the age of 30 today your chances of being anything more than 50% WBCA is diminishing rapidly.

8000+ pilots with in 4 years is a massive wad in the snake.

 

Or, and hear me out…enjoy being a NBFO for a while and pack away your hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, plus 18% 401k DC, and then be surprised if you do make NB or WBCA.

Y’all make it sound like anything less than retiring at #1 company wide is a disaster of a career.