I knew there was a reason I could be number one there.

That’s not why they opened MCO lol….

They couldn’t get guys to upgrade on the 737 in EWR or SFO.

Created a ton of 737 vacancies in IAH, ORD, DEN to entice guys to take the upgrade then came MCO and LAS to get guys to bite on the upgrade….

As soon as the contract was signed, noticed that the company has shifted NBCA vacancies back to their hubs with a bulk going to EWR/SFO….

Was this a vonnegut reference? If so, well done.

'Twas cruel to post a Friday vacancy with no snapshot for three days. That said, why do the people who never add their bid until after the final snapshot is posted do that?

never let the enemy know your intentions. same reason why you should never use your turn signal

yep. a turn signal means those behind you in the next lane to hit the gas.

I have never understood that either. I flew with one CA who said "I don't want people to see what I want." Um, OK? Because everyone will see what you were awarded anyways 🙄

Let me guess….he had an Inop sticker over his iPad camera?

I really don't know why people struggle with the MIN/MAX concept so much. It's pretty simple. When a base has MIN below the current number of pilots, any attrition for that BES won't be backfilled until reaching the MIN. So if you have a BES with 500 pilots currently, a MIN of 490, and a MAX of 500, Crew Planning would allow the base to shrink by up to 10 pilots. They aren't requiring it, but would permit it. Now why they do this could be two different things. 1) They're doing it out of training considerations, which is what most of the current vacancy bid is. These are growing fleets and it doesn't benefit the company to reduce the number of CA long term, but due to training throughput they need to limit potential activations into those categories which would trigger a training event. 2) The base is intentionally shrinking. You're starting to see some of this on the 756 fleets in particular, as well as IAH 737. It's obviously not in danger of closing, but prior to UPA23 they grew it far larger than their optimizer said it should be because it's where they could get pilots to upgrade. So they've been right-sizing it over a period of time. At one point it was up to just over 800 FOs, but has been reduced down to the current 646 through attrition.

The net result is that reducing the MIN for any BES limits the total amount of movement on this vacancy. All of these widebody CAs will be coming from WBFO and NBCA, almost exclusively. A WBFO taking a WBCA will create a new vacancy that must be filled because the MIN is set to force a backfill. A NBCA doing the same thing likely won't in most domiciles.

We've all heard that a single WBCA vacancy can create [insert number somewhere between 5-12] vacancies due to the cascading backfills. That presumes, however, that each of those positions must be backfilled. Hypothetically, if that number was 8 vacancies created per WBCA vacancy and there are 92 WBCA vacancies, there could've been 736 people moving on this vacancy purely as a result of the WBCA vacancies. That won't be anywhere close to the case because of how they've done the MIN/MAX.

And a napkin under his seatbelt!

Good analysis and explanation. Also remember that almost all of these people upgrading leaving a category that isn't allowing backfills right now, will just add to the future vacancy bids when the training capacity is more suited to have more CA training. 737 and Airbus are growing fleets as we get 200 of those planes in the next 2 years and 50 more 787s. I can't imagine not continuing to have vacancy bids, if not even more, as retirements ramp up over the next few years.

Except if fuel prices require temporarily parking NGs and CEOs. Then growth can dramatically be slowed while taking deliveries

or permanently

Not sure they want to stop hiring and start shrinking the airline. They used the terms "full speed ahead" when they referenced $150 oil. Said we'd take advantage of opportunities to buy assets that airlines would sell to stay afloat.

We had oil at $130 in 2022 but still we hired a couple thousand pilots that year while other airlines lost money. I'd be shocked to see anything other than moving forward with deliveries and controlled growth.

Read what I wrote. We still take deliveries. We just slow pilot growth.

Which would be the smart play with economic contraction.

The pilot supply just would just be slightly not tremendously greater than the active fleet.

Then the parked jets cone back with recovery and we have old and new.

Market share can still grow even if fleet size and pilot group size stays constant, or even if they shrink slightly. But that's worst case for sure.

https://i.makeagif.com/media/4-17-2015/HYC4qV.gif

FARVAS NUMBER ONE!!!!

(sorry, couldn’t help myself after I read your post)


More like “because anyone even knows who you are or GAS?”

And why drop a bid on Friday and post no snaps over the weekend? Can some intern not post the PDF? Irritating.

Maybe not. Delta’s psych test looks for narcissism mixed with mild autism as a desirable attribute. Don’t think they’re looking for trembling micro-aggression.

It seems they are not backfiling NB CA categories much at all. So the min allows them to do this?

they MUST backfill to the MIN…..that’s it….anything more than that is up to their discretion

Yes. The Min is be set entirely at their discretion.
\
They could set every NBCA category min to 0 then any NBCA who bid out is not backfilled

what’s up with that anyways? Saw an LCP doing it…

Lots of reasons...we eat with trays on our laps. So, if you drop anything, it grinds into your pants under the belt. Also, the "crotch strap"...do you want that thing actually touching your clothes? Sh!t, urine, menstrual...you get the idea. One final note...have you ever spilled water on the seatbelt? The black filth that comes off of it from all of the years of use is disgusting.

Do we have a plague of belt poopers?

I’m going to freak you out even more because I feel I can.

iv see a lot of dudes mostly on the 737 put there foot on the speed brake handle . And I saw one guy put his foot on the mouse pad for the CDU in the 787……the same shoes that walk in the lav.

Our flight decks are full of poop and pee….a napkin on your lap ain’t gona help you

Freak me out, hardly. You too must be a treat to fly with, just like the napkin wearers! I’m kidding of course…

We all do things that may seem odd to others. I’m not an alcohol wipe person myself, but if that’s someone’s gig, fine.

The point was to explain why someone might use a napkin, not to criticize one way or another.

We all see some quirky stuff. I do my best not to judge and maybe learn something too.

Makes me feel better for wiping down the flight deck as soon as I get in. People are nasty

if you would have stoped with dirty seat belt and your pants getting discolored because of the wear I wouldn’t have said a word……you lost me at poop pee and menstrual blood on the crotch strap…..that’s hole nother level of freakout suggesting our female pilots can’t keep themselves clean and our others pee and poop all over their pants……:rolleyes:

I don't think someone panicking about seat belts should be allowed to hold a 1st class medical.

Just about every surface in the airport is far dirtier.

You are entitled to your opinion. As far as suggestions, if that’s the way you read that, go ahead and try to put words in my mouth and tell me where and when to stop typing please. You’re definitely the master of all!

As a 737 FO, that's a great way to stretch out and relax on a transcon if you're not quite limber enough to reach the Captain's control column.

Weird profession. We sit down, seat belt goes on. The pants actually wear because of the seat belt. You can see it below the belt line. You put a cloth napkin under the seat belt, problem solved.

Back in the day, lots of senior 727 guys did it all the time.

you can say all the weird **** you want….type away buddy….just don’t be surprised when people call you weird for typing weird ****.

Thanks buddy!

I get we have filthy airplanes but this reply is kinda sick. What are you in 5th grade? Pls tell me you’re not a pilot here.

the man is talking seriously about people routinely pooping/peeing their pants/menstruating onto the seat belt and then reacting defensively when people tell him how insane he sounds. I too hope he is just a troll but I'm afraid he's perfectly sincere

the whole world is covered in a thin layer of feces. I think germ phobia is mostly unhelpful.

but some things are dirtier than others. Something that rubs 1000 zippers a year and is never cleaned probably will grow some interesting bacteria

Your toothbrush, regardless of where it’s stored, will have fecal microbes growing on it. FACT proven on MythBusters. Their control was in a different room, still had poopy microbes.

But did they put a napkin over it?

It just dawned on me that the fact we’re on this poopy tangent, hopefully it isn’t an omen for UPA27 or other vacancies….