A320 future in EWR
 

What's going on with the A320 in EWR? For a while it seemed like they were increasing staffing levels and now on this recent bid their going from 91 captains today down to 73 captains by May. I would think with the introduction of the additional 320s we are getting from China would increase flying. Anyone know what's up?

from the recent flight ops update:

EWR – The A320 flying in EWR is sharply decreasing due to the concentration of the 320 departures out of four of our hubs (ORD, DEN, IAH and SFO, which contain 80% of the hub departures). This means most of the A320 departures for in the NYC area are actually out of LGA. Our EWR base is properly staffed on this fleet, and will continue to provide the required staffing to operate those flights out of EWR and LGA.

I saw that and in one sentence the 320 is decreasing, and the next sentence the base is properly staffed.
IF you look at the bid packages it seems most flying is still concentrated out of EWR. Something doesn't make sense here?
So properly staffed would mean no more reductions? No?

Yeah not sure, going back the last three vacancy bids the min staffing has been 70, 72, 73. The Max number has decreased my guess is they feel comfortable with the staffing but they have left the minimum low to avoid backfills.

Possibly, but there are 5 or 6 back fills on the current bid.
Who knows what their plan is? I would surmise that they don't
Even know.

Big picture, per the flight ops update..
They are going focusing the Airbus hub flying out of DEN, IAH, SFO, and ORD. These hubs will be set up to do major reliability maintenance at night. More and more of the New York Airbus flying will be flown out of LGA. The February mix of EWR/LGA was 50%/50%. It improved slightly in March to 60%/40%, but their stated intentions are to sharply decrease EWR Airbus flying.

If you look at the staffing min max numbers going back about 18 months, they've gone from a min of about 100 captains to a min of 73. At the same time, they've grown the SFO Airbus captains from a min of 100 to a min near 150.

Not the best news for us New York Airbus folks, unless you live closer to LGA.

Yeah, I actually started thinking about an LGA crashpad since the changes have taken place. I haven't flown out of EWR since early January.

What about DCA?

So where are all the additional busses going?
They seem to be keeping the max around the high 80s. Do you think that number will slip to 73?
Thanks for the info.

Hard to say .. honestly, I'd wait until after the summer to make any big decisions regarding the Airbus and bases. The latest bid is supposed to be for summer staffing levels; thus, staffing after this bid will probably stay stable until September or October. Maybe by then we will hear more information from manpower planning.