l-UAL had unfilled 777 and 400 bids 15 years ago as well. ALPA decided to talk the company into not letting new-hires go to those aircraft. I can't remember why they did this.

I think a new hire being a bunky for 300 hours a year is a bad way to learn to be an airline pilot. Maybe that was ALPA's reasoning.

The 777's are not fenced on either side. Their are some pretty jr folks sitting on great lines in IAH and EWR. Their are a bunch of much more sr 756 FO's that are going to get bumped. I would bet a significant number bump to 777 FO.

Umm reserve actually went senior to India flying many months. No need for facts in generalizations.

This was happening at CAL before the last economic meltdown. Rumor was a 777 CA showed up to ops and the three FOs handed him their probationary reports to fill out. I don't think he rested that well on that trip. Also we started having 2 year CAs and fairly high levels of the company started an inquiry as to what could be so bad with QOL that much more senior pilots didn't want to upgrade but would rather stay FOs. (Ps, it was FAR work rules and understaffing of reserves). Speculation was that they may have been a bit concerned at the press reporting "the captain had only been hired two years ago" in case of an incident. Before they got too far into the inquiry the economy tanked, furloughs and stagnation returned things to normal, merger announced, rest is history.

Wow. India? Sounds great.

This was a result of bidding freezes. A pilot would get hired as a 727 SO then upgrade to FO within the first year. They would have a 4 year freeze, 2 years for the SO training and 2 years for the FO training.

The reason 747 and 777 went unfilled was because of freezes mostly and not people didn't want to bid them.

I had a chance to bid the 747-400 right out of S/O school.....I ended up going to the 727 F/O seat and took the 4 year freeze. 9/11 caused the freeze to go away and I bumped starting in the 747-400 to the 767, to the A320, and finally the 737 or "guppy".


Flew everything UAL had with the exception in the 777.

Almost the same here. I wasn't on a freeze when these were going junior, but I was holding a good line as a 727 FO and why give that up to be on reserve. But most of my friends were on freezes lamenting the guppy FO bid that they took and if they'd have waited a few months they'd be on the 777 or 747.

Yeah. Who wants a stupid unproductive 30 hour 4 day trip that just happens to be perfectly commutable on both ends? I'm sure UAL guys will shun that trip as you would in the future. Did you ever get a chance to enjoy Ghana on The U's time good sir?

Funny because during the SLI hearings the CAL MC stated that this type of flying wasn't desirable. They described it as being "trapped in a foreign country" and pilots just liked doing "short haul flying". Of course this was to neutralize the huge WB disparity between the two airlines.

Apparently the arbitrators didn't agree.

Now all of a sudden those WB trips aren't so bad.

Imagine that.....

Enough guys - this does NOT further the greater goals this group has.

In Unity.....