I have been looking at the staffing and it appears that the most junior captain at UAL is around 50% total company seniority. It appears from this that the trend to upgrade as soon as possible is far greater at United than it was at CAL.

A lot of talk on here has been about how junior the captains were at CAL. This was primarily because our FO's tended to be extremely senior and avoided the captain bids for QOL. We see almost as many FO's retire off the 777 as Captains. In fact right now someone I know who is 32% in the company is holding #83 in Newark on the 777 (about 22%). He can easily hold Captain in any A320 base as a line holder using the current list.

The idea that all the UAL guys will flow into the Captain slots at CAL is probably very true. But, I think a lot of people are forgetting that a TON of our very senior people commute from the West Coast, Denver and even a bunch from MSP and ORD. These folks are very senior yet have chosen to not commute to a domestic line in ORD, LAX, SFO or DEN until post ISL as the small number of flights made the schedule's very poor.

Now that the ISL is done and the Airbus is open to bidding by both sides (as there are openings), I would expect some of our most senior guys (top 20%) to bid home to the West coast and Denver. We have had such poor bases for so long that the idea these guys can fly from home is very exciting. It will be interesting to see how many CAL guys flow on to the Bus.

 

Hmmm....not sure I agree with that.

Take a look at the FO rosters on the 747, 777, and 767 and one will find tons of FOs that can hold CA on the 320.

But I do agree that we will see quite a few UA pilots that were formally narrowbody CA and have been hanging out on the widebody as FO for QOL now bidding new CA vacancies.

 

There will definitely be some movement based on folks finally not having to commute. Also some based on the pain of commuting to a specific base. On the UA side people would commute to ORD rather than IAD because in IAD (except for the 777) you have to cover trips out of IAD, DCA, and BWI. So, I think IAH will fit better for commuters than IAD. EWR would prob be better as well, based on the very high concentration of trips out of EWR, but the LGA and JFK trips will still scare off some commuters.

The West Coast bidding is going to be quite interesting in the coming years ( I can say interesting since I am an ORD guy, I am sure the West Coast guys would choose a different word) Opening a West Coast 787, likely closing LAX 747 and shrinking SFO 747, growing the SFO 777 base, Majorly expanding the SFO 737 base, expanding the LAX 737 base, all with the backdrop of 80+ retirements this year and 320 next year.

Just for your info. Here is the current number of active folks in each seat around the UA side of the operation. Figure with this and the junior man info from a few days ago, people should be able to start getting an idea of where they are. The info only includes active people, so no instructors, management, SL, or LOA types.

Equip Pos ORD LAX SFO
400 CAP 14 - 18 - 145
400 F/O 38 - 47 - 307

Equip Pos DCA ORD LAX SFO SEA
777 CAP 161 - 94 - 42 - 78 - 16
777 F/O 308 - 246- 82 - 113- 22

Equip Pos--- JFK DCA ORD IAH DEN LAX SFO SEA
757/67 CAP 69- 149 177 39 - 119 106- 87- 22
757/67 F/O 106 185 218 88 - 112 97 - 92- 21

Equip Pos---- JFK DCA ORD IAH DEN LAX SFO
319/320 CAP 46- 159- 230 48 237 109 116
319/320 F/O 40- 168- 244 54 253 117 121

The dashes don't mean anything they are just there to make the columns line up

 

Two of the guys I'm flying to HKG with this month can hold 777 Captain but don't want to fly the LHR garbage so they stay 777 FO. The top of the 777 FO bases are crazy senior

 

We definitley have those folks on the UA side as well. 13 guys on SFO 747 F/O had below 1000, 7 guys on ORD 777 F/O had below 1000 on the old seniority list(junior 777 cap seniority number was 1114 with the old seniority numbers).

When I went through 777 f/o school, my Captain was coming off of 13 years as a 400 F/O.

 

Also, I looked up the info and the junior Capt on the A320 is In DCA and his old seniority number was 4157. There were 7565 on our seniority list, but as I am sure you are aware, many have been recalled as 737 F/O's.

So, if you include all the pilots on our list, the junior CAP would be a 55%.

However, the junior pilot actually on the UA side for bidding purposes was old seniority number 6572. So, if you only include those pilots actually on the UA bidding side, the junior CAP would be 63% down the list.

 

I think "back in the old days", pilots wanted to be Captain. Command was in a pilot's DNA. Most guys would rather be in command of the tug than FO on the Liner. Sad to see that attitude go.

I'd bet money on this thought however. If you told them during your hiring interviews you were only interested in "QOL" and had no desire to check out as Captain, they wouldn't have hired you.

 

I agree.

But I'll also observe that nearly 100% of the "QOL" widebody FOs at sUAL were previously a narrowbody CA at UAL, either prior to 9/11 or on the guppy till the bitter end, and have already checked the CAPTAIN box on their resume. They've seen both sides and are now bidding their seniority (i.e. doing whatever they want).

 

I think 100% is a far stretch. When we were hired, read lacking experience, we all wanted was that so called coveted Capt seat. Then as we matured listening to those we flew with, we learned that four stripes is nothing but a seniority number which doesn't guarantee respect. We learned that being a United pilot doesn't define us but QOL and creating a life outside of United is what is important. That is why many choose widebody F/O over Capt and why our widebody flying in general is so desirable.

 

Does anyone know roughly how many guys at UAL commute? I think at CAL we were around 60% commuters. I thinking probably less at UAL since there were alot better base options. But if anyone has any idea that would be great.