Just to clarify, any category that has enough people bid out HAS to back fill up to the MIN number. The company has the option to then backfill any others that bid out resulting in a number between then MIN and MAX. They can not go over the MAX number.

While it's easy to notice the 737 IAH bids because they weren't advertised....keep in mind that many DEN 320 Captains were displaced on the same bid. They had advertised vacancies for that seat on this bid. The company even went so far as to kind of apologize for the displacement and now vacancy a year later.

The backfills in the 737 just means things are finally starting to move there.....folks bidding off.

Just want that to be clear before the inevitable "conspiracy" crap starts up from people like Salley and the like.

SFO 737 bottom guy is 1100 numbers senior to a post merger hire.

But, just to clarify, these numbers are whatever the company wants them to be. There used to be staffing rules in old contracts. Now, it's whatever the company wants.

So, don't be enamored of the min/max numbers too much, they set them where ever and may not mean much of anything. Has to back fill? Only if they want to. As many have seen, there doesn't seem to be a real staffing model or logic to what they do.

That doesn't work because of the merger and disparity between DOH and seniority. A good analogy is that at the current rate we are within 2 years of the post merger hires being Captains. And not on a 100 seat jet like some other airlines that have 2 year Captains.

The 1,100 number is correct.

But if you have to know the junior Captains are Feb 2000 UAL and Sep 2007 CAL basically Airbus SFO, and 737s SFO and EWR with 65 737-700s and more A-319s on the way not to mention all the "jumbo" planes being delivered.

I was told that it's also based on training capacity. So they may let a bunch of people bid out of a seat, but not backfill because they don't have enough training slots for a few months. Then what they do is on the next bid they post a vacancy with a new MIN and fill those positions instead of just holding everything static and letting backfills happen naturally. They are aware of the 92 day training/pay/bump thing that we didn't have in the old contract so they are trying to avoid paying people if they don't have to or people bumping into other seats forcing even more training events.

It may not look like they know what they are doing, but it's an art form to do it given the number of variables involved.

At least that was the explanation I was given.

The UPA does still have staffing requirements. 8-B to be exact.

I'd say guys hired in 2013 will be getting Capt bids within the next year.

It looks that way, but only if they want to be based in SFO or EWR.

And buried in reserve for the next five yrs. The real question is the seniority of the 80% ers.