The company was explicit in crafting that narrative. The MOAB bid became the FOMO bid. My theory…cheaper overall to upgrade a senior FO than a junior one when considering the combined salary of the cockpit

 

It was a poorly communicated message. Using the word "primary" for 737 CA got translated into "last bid until fall 2026". If you actually read the last 5 CRUs there are going to be more bids, including more 737 CA as previously mentioned as this gets the airline staffed for Spring and starts the training pipeline for Summer. I guess we will see if there is a bid next month, and then another on in January and February, or in fact, this is the last bid until next fall like I'm having guys tell me.

The idea that we will hire 2,500 pilots in 2026 plus another 300 the rest of this year, who will almost exclusively go to 737 and Airbus FO, and yet only have 200 CA upgrades with 128 planes being delivered next year is sort of ridiculous, especially when you see the min numbers and that every category is essentially evenly staffed right now between FO and CA.

200 CA bids doesn't even cover half of 2026 retirements if we have no planes being delivered.

I guess we will find out. If there are indeed no more bids and no more Captain upgrades and it really does take 5 years to hold WBFO then I will admit I was wrong.

So I guess we will see if there are indeed any future vacancy bids or this is the last one. At least most of the fear and FOMO should be gone by then.

 

I’ve never dropped a trip.

You can make more as an FO with some seniority than a junior captain…and have a better QOL. I would wager that people who chase the dollars by upgrading at the earliest possible opportunity actually make less money.

 

Latest I've heard is that we are apparently 15% overstaffed on the 737. So my guess here is that a lot of these new deliveries are going to be replacements for aircraft to be retired, rather than net-new adds.

The CRU was quite clear to me: if you want a NBCA upgrade, or snag a WBFO seat, do it now, because this will take care of most of our 2026 flying needs. I think we should take that statement at face value. I think they meant exactly what they said in that CRU.

In the bigger picture, though, a 3.5 year upgrade at 75% system seniority is still pretty darn fast. I believe AA is a bit faster at the moment. Not sure about DAL, and both AS/HAL and SWA are stagnant with much longer upgrade times.

I'm surprised by how senior WBFO is going. Although the most junior WBFO is a 134XX number (about 73% system seniority, a 2022 hire), that's an outlier in just one base -- there are just three EWR 777FOs with seniority numbers in the 13XXX range. Everywhere else, it's in the 8000 range, which is 44% system seniority!! (What is that -- maybe a 2016 hire or so?)

 

Where did you get that we are 15% overstaffed? None of the vacancies for the 737 indicate that

 

If it's sooner I will be more than happy to admit it and apologize.

 

Not disagreeing with you, but your statement should include some caveats. Yes, senior FO's can make more than junior CAs. However, that is very base dependent. The opportunity for premium in EWR vs LAX is far different. Same with how much someone is bought off for training. EWR and SFO will have a lot more LCA trips than DEN or IAH do currently. I've met FOs that make more than me, but man they hustle. The new reserve rules actually mean a junior CA (living in base) can have great QoL and make a great paycheck without working hard. Bottom line, left and right seat are great. Find your niche and enjoy it.

 

On a month-to-month basis, that’s not correct. However, they can come close. It requires a few things though. Live in base. Base should be a junior one. It would also have to be on a junior fleet. Last piece is that you have to spend time camping the board. You could do a smart trade, but everyone I spoke with usually doesn’t do that for premium because they want to see the trip first.

For bases like EWR and SFO, it eliminates something like 60%-70% of the pilots since they commute. Other pilots in bases like CLE and MCO probably don’t see PP because it’s small and the base is senior.

For a small percentage of the FOs that live in the NE, they can make pretty good money. They’ll out earn CAs on certain months, but not YOY.

 

That’s not true on most cases. I would think FOs need to choose one or the other (money or QOL) … plus the caveats already mentioned.
FO breaking 400k this year had to work a lot more than me been on reserve, completed first years as CA and I’m still far away from getting my 🔵 in pilotmobile but at least I’m improving my golf handicap.

 

So we're 15% overstaffed so management hired 106 new hire pilots this week and gave them all 737 FO and then is upgrading 200 CA in a monthly vacancy bid because that's what you do when you are "overstaffed 15%". Plus going to hire 2,500 pilots next year and put most of them in 737 and Airbus FO but at the same time there will be no more CA bids because the CRU said "this is the last CA vacancy".

Make it make sense please.