It's hard to tell with constantly changing seniority numbers, but the bottom hire on the merged list is #11055 or so, for the purposes of the snapshot.

There would have to be openings below that for an LUA to get the 787.

And since this is APC, a good old conspiracy theory should be tossed. Latest manning summary shows zero change to the plan to shove all future sparkie flying into IAH by mid 2016. So the staffing continues to significantly grow on the West Coast despite no additional flying. Never seen that before. Clearly the number of CAL guys willing to commute to WB reserve is running out. Curious...

There were openings below that. 11 in SFO alone. Those pilots are post-merger hires. It was a mistake on the snapshot.

Maybe the MEC should look at this and see if any LUAL pilots were passed over because of this in prior bids. Could mean a money award.

Forgive my ignorance, but I thought that LUAL Pilots were fenced off until #25 got on property. I wasn't aware that there was a contingency built in based off of post-merger hires getting 787.

The ISL award only applied to the pilots on property then. If a vacancy goes unfilled with pilots from the respective side (sUAL for the 747 or sCAL for the 787) the remaining vacancies for that bid can go to anyone in seniority order.

It doesn't "drop the fence" it just allows the remaining slots on a particular bid to go to the other side for those vacancies. Since everyone hired after the SLI wasn't S-anything, it doesn't really apply other than in seniority order. In Nov/Dec when we get number 25 all fleets/seats are system-wide seniority awards. What's going to be interesting is how it's handled for bids that have an effective date after the sheduled delivery of number 25 but closes before it's actually on property.

Answered in prior post.

Great explanation. Yes LUAL pilots can fly the 787 before the fence falls, but only after it goes unfilled by LCAL pilots not bidding it.

The language in the Award is straightforward as I read it. It uses the term "can be awarded" and "delivered". It doesn't say anything about effective date. So it looks like #25 has to be "delivered" before a vacancy "can be awarded". So in theory, there could be a bid that closes the day before #25 arrives and no LUAL pilots will be awarded a vacancy, unless of course it goes unfilled on the LCAL list, like it appears might happen on this bid.

I was just going by how some interpret "can be awarded". The award has an effective date. I know many who feel that "awarded" is the effective date since it's published as such. I can see their point that if the award is for a date after number 25 is on property, why were they not allowed to bid it? Already been discussed in length on the ALPA board.

It's spelled right there in the bid.

VACANCY AWARD Snapshot EFFECTIVE 9/29/2015 (October Bid Month)

Vacancy Award is Effective for October. If the bid says the Award is Effective for December and number 25 comes in November. The ISL doesn't say date published. It says awarded. If an award isn't effective until after 25 arrives, it should be open to all. Just saying it's going to be interesting.

So how do we know for sure #25 is really coming? What if a pilot gets a bid awarded because of a Jan 1 "Effective date" and then there is a problem on the 787 line and they stop producing them for a year and we only have 23 on property, but guys have been trained.