2021 System Bid Rumors
 

Here are some of the scenarios I’ve heard being mentioned.

1. Status Quo model aka the penny-pincher “sweating assets” doctrine - > airline needs to be right-sized! Hire but ONLY if we absolutely, positively must! Shed any and all unprofitable flying, even if those are long-terms customers.. Short term profit over long term viability.
(Anecdotally I’ve never seen this many peak-season flights with payloads way below our planned #s. Hope those were fluke flights and other fleets show otherwise..)

2. A HUGE, ginormous bid! (which is brown lingo for ~25 new captains)

3. Realigning of the 74 fleet with more ANC flying being shifted down to SDF.

4. Combination of the above.

What’s your prognostication..

Not gonna give up on new CEO for a little bit yet. I’m going with 100+ captains, some anchorage realignment. Either way, we are losing 10 guys a month to retirement it seems so they’ll be hiring if only for attrition.

I like your thinking. So you’re saying there’s hope? 😆

I heard 100 people dropped retirement papers in December. It hasn’t been confirmed, but it was from a guy high up in the ANC 747 training dept. Hopefully somewhere near there is truth and the company is still trying to figure out how to structure the system bid.

We retired almost 150 in 2020, likely the same or more in 2021. We upgraded a whopping 15 on the July bid and we have 10ish new airframes coming this year, and every fleet running painfully lean on staffing. How the actual f*uck can we continue at this pace without a mega bid upcoming? I understand Queen Carol’s wants to sweat the assets, but without bodies in the seats, there are no assets to sweat.

I’ve heard two system bid rumors. One say we’ll hire 600 this year and there will be 300 upgrade slots. Call me skeptical, but we can always dream. The second is more along the lines of the goal of hiring 300 this year and upgrade around 100ish. I’d bet on the second, but I hope for the first. I also haven’t given up on Carol, but I expect her to pursue the route that makes the stock price climb fastest.

I just don’t understand how 150+ Captains retire and they backfill maybe a quarter of that. Rely more and more on JA? ‘Cause our schedules are probably near max utilization. If we make a concerted effort (non coordinated, just everyone take conscience) to stop accepting JA’s, I can’t imagine how the company will be able to crew a full schedule.

A mechanic said all expenditures were cut for the year. They are not eve going to do the new hanger in SDF.
Also, they are instructed to differ everything. He was told a tire has 5 more landings on it: "differ"

If this is true I can't imagine them doing the smart thing w a system bid.

Is this hyper-realism mode where you spell "defer" like a mechanic?

It’s Davis’ Vu all over again. Realignment/Displacement, idle older 757, increase efficiency within system, shrink below 3000 either by attrition or furlough. 74/MD-11 multiple turns and 2 legs into/out of sort.

Maybe the 3 new hires that No Showed for today’s class know something we don’t. But unbelievably frustrating when I have friends in the pool that can’t get called for a class