DITTO... bid 737 (growing fleet) and movement will be quickest... bet you'd get a lateral to DCA before training is up... wait won't be long.

 

How senior is DEN these days on the narrow bodies? I would expect a few years on property before a newhire could hold that. Then again I never would have guessed the junior base of a merged UAL/CAL would be on the west coast, so I'm pleading even more ignorance than usual.

 

By narrow bodies...you mean the Airbus? Because the 737 does virtually the same thing as the wide bodies, etops and all. Heck it pays the same as a 757.

 

I'm a May 4th CJO and was told an October class as well. I'm hoping for EWR or IAD as I live in the east coast. If you get the Airbus what's the chances of staying away from LAX or SFO?

 

SFO is a high possibility. They are growing the bus in SFO. You won't get lax on the bus out of class. More senior, and seems to be stagnant; if not shrinking.

 

For clarification as the OP....

I received CJO on 21 April, and was given late Sept/Oct class. Based on some minor changes to my availability date (3-4 days) I contacted UAL to update....was told to expect an October class.

Assuming 11 Oct class stands - I'll be 40 yrs, 9 months

 

T-6 Pilot,
First, congrats on getting hired! I wanted to wade into the 737 basing discussion with some initial perspectives with a whooping 60 days on property (8 Mar Indoc start) as well as to throw some really interesting math out on not just how fast everything is moving here at United right now (to get you and other poolies fired up!) but also some of the "migration patterns" when newhires get their first true bidding choice after the Day 1 class drop aka a system "vacancy bid." An overall disclaimer here is the trendy acronym YMMV (your mileage may vary) as trying to guess which equipment and bases to bid for greatest seniority growth truly is a crapshot unless you're FB friends with the United VP of Network Planning! For instance, I have a good bud hired ~Aug '15 who took an A320 to EWR, cleared IOE late October, and by January '16 was holding a line at 56% FO seniority! The last 3 months, however, he's been trending backward toward the G-Line (cutoff percentage where you're GUARANTEED a line if you bid it) because United has not only shut off the newhire A320 pipeline until Fall, but they're also consolidating A320 ops more at SFO, DEN, IAH, and ORD and slightly shrinking LAX, IAD and EWR. Hence....YMMV!

Here's what I've seen in my brief 60 days:

- My overall company seniority has gone from 12492 to 12442....50 pilots have either hung up the headsets at Age 65 or early out for med/other issues

- 132 newhires below me have been added to the June bid month staffing roster in 4 BES (base, equip, seat): 737 EWR/SFO/LAX FO & 756 EWR FO. NOTE: There is probably 1 or perhaps 2 classes who are on property but not added to base rosters yet as it seems to take 7-10 days from start to populate your assisgnment

- At EWR I am 398/420 with 22 new hires below me. If I'd gone to SFO I'd be 180/233 (53 below) and LAX 178/210 (32 below). We had no 757/767 but there are 25 x 756 EWR FO below me.

So, you'd think looking at these numbers that SFO is the no brainer as the fastest growing base in United's fasting growing fleet if you want seniority and a line....right? Well I'm not so sure about that because I think the company is artificially pumping up SFO manning for the Summer because they know that as soon as they open Vacancy Bid 16_07 to help fill Fall training requirements (esp. 777-300ER arrivals!), they are going to see a mass migration eastward by SFO 737 FOs based purely on the precedent set by Vacancy Bid 16_06 which closed in early April as, presumably, the final move opportunity until about 1 September. I went back and glanced at 16_06 results for the SFO 737 FOs and out of the bottom 60 FOs who were eligible to move laterally to another base (seniority #s 167-227) in that bid, 40 of them bid out to IAH, ORD, IAD, LAX, and mostly EWR. LAX saw a migration eastward too but significantly less than SFO.

Why is this? The main reason is that in an average newhire class, I'd guess that 60-70% of folks live Great Plains and points eastward making ORD/IAH/IAD/EWR commutes significantly shorter. There are also other variables to consider certainly....commuting to a location with family for free crashpad, proximity to ANG/Reserve gig, cost of local area/crashpad/hotel rooms and trip quality. Big picture...all the 737 flying looks pretty damn good and LAX may be a bit of a sleeper with the amount of Mexico and Hawaii it gets (although Hawaii would be untouchable except for a random reserve). But everyone will pretty freely admit that EWR offers the best overall 737 flying in United's system. Most starts are early AM and many include a single 4-5 hour leg down to the Caribbean/Mex where you're on the beach by early/mid PM for 24 hour layover. Whatever redeye flying EWR gets is almost always on the final leg back from west coast so you're dog tired commuting home but at least you're done. The 2 west coast bases see a lot more redeyes to START trips which makes them technically same-day commutable but if you're 41 like me that is a brutal way to start a 3-4 day trip perhaps. The 737 flying out of IAD and ORD looks to have a lot more hub to hub and less international overall. IAH 737 is a bigger gateway to Mexico/CA with less Caribbean flying than EWR and is taking 6+ months to secure. Finally, DEN is creeping way back and some 1.5 year folks just snuck in there on 737 FO which was unthinkable a few years ago.

So hopefully all these data points help. Big picture is that the pilot staffing is pushing 70% of newhires to SFO and LAX 737 right now based not only on demand/growth out there but also because historically huge numbers of pilots bid back eastwards at earliest opportunity and there is very little secondary bid flow going westward among newhires. I'm confident that although I'm not even IOE complete and would be at like 77% as SFO 737 FO, whatever seniority I'd enjoy out there for June-August would come way back down when 16_07 vacancy bid closes late Summer. In Newark, I'll sit reserve all Summer but expect to see a big seniority boost in early Fall when folks escape the left coast. Now having predicted all that, watch the total opposite happen....Majors 101 right?

Good luck...hope this helps. Things are REALLY good here at United,
BK

 

Gag!!! Cough cough.....

 

Cannot thank you enough for taking the time to share your thoughts

 

Yup.

In summary:

1) Something always changes.

2) You can't predict future movement in a base based only on what happened to guys hired 6 months (or a year) ago. It's like driving on the highway while looking in the rear view mirror.