Baghdad Bob on the 14-12S Displacement Letter
 

Is the Displacement Letter correct that the Junior 737 Captain in Denver is 3943?

The Vacancy Bid 14-11 Summary shows a Junior Man of 8433.

Baghdad Bob thinks so.

Dogg

That's where it will be after a few rounds of bumps in DEN.

Corrected Jr man table has been posted.

That junior?

The MAX/MIN shows every category and base at max (and clearly over max in the displacement seats).

So once those guys bump to what they can hold... How do we know what will happen next? Where will the bumped guys go? Clearly to what they can hold in a secondary bump... But the little color coded staffing chart shows we will need 737 in SFO/DEN/ORD/LAX... When will those show as a vacancy and not require people to be bumped?

Sorry if that was super confusing.

Probably never. The graph said that by the summer of 2015 there would need to be between 25-50 Captains on the 737 in Denver. There are 130 Denver displacements just on this bid alone, not to mention that they have about 400 total in Denver to surplus.

There will not be a vacancy bid for Denver 737 Captain for a very long time because there will be more people bumping to it in just this one displacement, not to mention the others that will follow in the coming 9 months.

I'm sure many 76T FOs who get a bump to Denver guppy Captain on this displacement will soon be bumped out themselves as they keep coming.

So the amount of training and re-training that is going to occur in the next year will be staggering.

I have no sympathy for them.

They built this problem themselves.

Three and a half years to get an ISL, the SFO MOU, the delay for a year after the SLI to do anything about rebalancing, etc...

Dogg

Po..effing...etic.

By "them" I meant the company. A lot of cabbage has been wasted over this

Dogg

Yup.
I wasn't around for the buffoonery 2010-2012, but not starting the displacements last September boggles the mind. Wasting training assets to train a bunch of Capts way out of seniority, only to bump them, all-the-while paying the equivalent of 700-1000 pilots on the former blue team to sit around and not work? I don't get it.

It is not just salary. Training costs, bumping costs (paid moves, PS passes, etc). This will be dragged out 2 years longer than if they had started the bumping last year.

Obviously, management doesn't either.

All the old staffing guys who were putting out those pre-SLI vacancies are gone. Civitello and Papaleo are LUAL crew planners. They run staffing now.

Recently they have trained some elder UAL guys to the guppy left seat from lateral pay UAL capt seats. These folks won't even have to take a PC next year due to being that close to 65. They clear aren't acting like they care about training costs.

Does it look like the plan is to shrink DEN? (total overall mainline flying, not talking about 73 vs. 76t)

They are massively shrinking Denver.

Any bets on when we lose the B concourse?

Naw. They will just add RJ's to the rest of the gates. Ops Normal here at UAL!

Like they said, if it wasn't for the RJ's, we wouldn't be in business.

I have listened to Howie and his double speak about Denver for years now. One day we are going to grow Denver, then we are going to shrink Denver, then Denver is no good as a base, then we are going to have massive growth in Denver.

The latest was huge growth on 737 in Denver. Which actually meant add 50 or so 737 positions and delete 350 "other" pilot positions in base. Old Howie is a wascally widdle company mouth piece. Truly, Jeffy's personal little Baghdad Bob..

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y18...ps9d8c5ff3.jpg

Hoss,

I gather the senior bumps will stay in DEN. Do you sense others will also bump to equip in Denver, or will they spread out to other domiciles?

That is the 64 million dollar question.

Here is my thought. You've got a core group who will never leave Denver no matter what. Some of those folks are the very senior people on the 76T and the 320 in either seat. They will ride it out in Denver being Denver based, period, it doesn't matter what they have to fly to do it. I reckon some super senior folks will take this opportunity to snag a wide body captain bid. I figure some will take a lateral and be senior on the 756 somewhere but the senior hardcore, Denver skier, outdoors men, love Colorado folks are staying.

Guys in the middle of the pack on the 76T F/O seat will probably mostly take a captain bid where they can hold a line.

In my seniority range guys will be on the fence. I am in the 7600ish system seniority range and a 1997 hire. I'd really like to upgrade to something for monetary purposes, either the left seat or a wide body right seat, HOWEVER in either case I am right on the cusp of holding a line. I WILL NEVER commute reserve again. I'd rather scrub my armpits with broken glass and lemon juice than do that to myself again. So I am on the fence, I've got a kid starting college and another right behind her, so I could use the money but I won't commute reserve and after the stuff settles I won't be able to hold anything in Denver other than the right seat on the 737. I'd like the luxury of not getting bumped for a couple of cycles to see if I will be able to remain a line holder or if I am going to be solid reserve as a 737 cap at the various bases. If reserve is guaranteed I'll probably just bump to the right seat of the 737 until with no freeze until I can move on somewhere.

That's my $.02 on the deal and it's probably not worth the $.02 I am charging for it.......

Snapshot is out

It most certainly is...

Thanks for that.

So the latest snapshot shows 46 "awards" for DEN 737 CA and 31 "awards" for DEN 737 FO. Do we know if there will be that many vacancies for DEN 737? If less than 46 and 31, where are those secondary displacements going?

It seems to me this whole backfill thing isn't nearly as complicated as the company makes it. I mean they know based on seniority who is getting displaced, they know based on preferences where those guys want to go and how many slots there are... so write a sorting program, plug and chug and publish the result. On the other hand, if we've got a team of dudes working with slide rules, #2 pencils and graph paper, I guess it could take awhile.:D

To answer your ? in the 1st paragraph, I'd bet most will go 787 FO since the majority of those displaced will be L-CAL 73 Capts.

DEN is going to need less than 50 net new Captains and FOs on the guppy.

There are still about 30 pilots who haven't submitted their choices yet for this bump so those numbers are going to rise.

There are still going to be at least 2 more bumps of this size in DEN still. Its likely that most of these pilots will get bumped as well.

Expect Captain in DEN to go to less than 5,000 seniority and 7,500 just to be based there.

DEN is going to be ugly.

Don't expect vacancy bids for a long time in DEN.

IAH guppy is next, overstaffed by 100+ in each seat not to mention the DEN pilots that are going to go to that base.

The two running manpower planning are LUAL managers, and they are very experienced at displacement and base right-sizing.

The next year will be interesting.

Yeah, the two guys are very experienced at phu(king it up. I haven't seen lUAL do this well, ever.

Consider they are growing the guppy in Denver and shrinking the bus. In IAH, they are going to shrink the guppy, and grow the bus????? Don't they both do approximately the same thing? They are going to displace a few hundred pilots, for no change in capability. Brilliant.

Slide rules and #2 pencils. LMAO. I wish they were smart enough to know what to do with either. I could offer an idea where they could put them, however.

If I were king, I would do 1 huge displacement bid, with an effective date 12-18 months into the future. Then a couple of secondaries, and be done with it.

Within a month, every pilot at UAL would know what they can plan for the next few years.

Problem is your not...they don't give a sheet about you, your family or your well being ...just make sure you are on time for work! Sorry, but that's just how it is with this mgt group.

It's the only way they can do a flush bid, which is what this is.

Don't have the numbers I crunched overall from company graphs but if I remember correctly about 275 Captains excess now but 200 openings, mainly in ORD, LAX, and SFO. Factor in retirements over next year and that 75 delta is eaten up. Numbers a little lower for FOs.

The X factor is IAD guppy base. If that study ever ends, and base opens huge game changer. As a bottom 100 guy in IAH I am not sweating it. But not moving to Houston quite yet. Last bid 25 above me in IAH took something elsewhere. Another bid like that and it will happen again. On the captain side they are already virtually near 500 already due to LTA and soon to retire captains using their sick time while they can. If somebody is moving down here PM me for neighborhood gouge-it is not just Woodlands-and welcome to Texas! But how many folks from say Denver are pulling their kids out if school to move or will sign up for one of the worse commutes in system.

It is gonna suck for somebody and maybe me. But strongly suspect not all that bad overall and what can I do about it? So just watch and wait. And enjoy life. If you come down to Texas first one is on me.

It really is going to be a mess for the next year or so. They claim they have the training issues sorted. Yeaaaahhhhhhh right. Sure they do. What's worse is that much of this is of their own making. Shoving a few hundred 737 Captain's through training right before the SLI was biblically stupid. Now that fleet is WAYYYY out of seniority, and as soon as you start bumping you realize how many training cycles it will take for it to be normalized. Millions wasted yet again. Sigh. I feel for all of you who will be displaced and uprooted. I hope you take FULL advantage of the paid move and commuter passes. Another cost the company earned

What was stupid was not sending more pilots through 737 Cap training. The 737 CA position has been woefully understaffed for more than two years.

I think than many people will be surprised at how few 737 Captains have secondary bumps. Remember, the plan is subject to change.

We will see but I'm thinking the majority of folks under about 4,000 ish seniority get bumped out of 737 Cap In a Denver.

What is going to be interesting is IAH needs 100 Bus Captains and is overstaffed 100 guppy Captains. So do they put the vacancy bid first for Fifi, or the bump for the guppy first?

Stupid question I guess but why does the 320 work better in IAH and the 737 better in Denver? Seems like a lot of shuck and jive for very little real world benefit?

Based on some stuff I heard from a management brief at TK last week, I think it is two-part:

1. Supposedly, the Bus has better lift at hot and high airports. Not DEN, which has plenty of runway, but Central America.

2. (This one wasn't a direct statement, but pieced together): Only 36% of the 737 fleet has wifi, or any entertainment at all, from my understanding! However, all the A-320s and A-319s do.

Question: do you put a bare-bones (but new) airplane on an international route, where people are bored silly, and lose revenue, since international is where we make most of our money?

Or do you put them on short 1-2 hour flights domestically?

I kind of think it is the latter.

There was a rumor the Company is looking at used Airbuses/Airbii. Also, from multiple sources (including management), hiring is going to go up to 80 a month for nearly two years. Block hours going up slightly (1%).

Just passing it along. Not sure how they would handle the training load. But they seem pretty serious about it.

I thought most of the 737 fleet had gone through the wifi/entertainment update and all new 737 are equipped with wifi/entertainment system from the get go. 36% seems a little low - doesn't sound right. What do you 737 guys say?

What's happening to Jeff's 2 class / 2 airplane type airline. Did somebody educate him?

T38,

Fwiw, via a flight mgr, the airbii used acft order has been quashed.

This was also said in earnings statement! Did you hear the numbers they were looking at?

They are trying to better match departures with the bases. The Airbus are better on longer flights and the guppy on shorter ones. So ORD and DEN airbus shrinks, and guppy grows there, and the Bus grows on the coasts. (via one of the crew planning managers)