I’m not to up to speed on the 76 training pipeline, but one of our MD sims is about to be replaced by the one from Anchorage. That will take us down to one sim for several months potentially. A sim instructor I recently flew with indicated they have been struggling to push everybody through in a timely fashion. Instructor availability may also be hurt by the pay disparity between OT pickups vs sim instruction on a day off.

Not saying you’re wrong, but we can’t keep up with training on the fleets we have. Adding another fleet type doesn’t seem possible given current infrastructure.

Agree, with the current infrastructure. UPS chooses to put out small bids and piecemeal training, They choose to run a skeleton training compliment of IPA instructors and burn them out. 15 years ago, when UPS CHOSE to run a legit compliment of instructors, we churned out many more people lots faster. IIRC, in 1994, they hired and trained around 700 pilots. To say nothing of the stand up of the airline in 88-90, and that was with a much smaller array of sims.

When Doc ran the MD with others, they stood that crew compliment up based on the delivery schedule that was planned. We were heavily overstaffed for a year or so and when the right number of airplanes showed up, we were trained and the airplanes moved. Don't get me wrong, all of us in the instructor house on all fleets were busy, but we were ahead of the curve enough to fly the airline for real without killing people like the 74 is now. That shortage on the 74 cripples the ability to put out real bids and train everybody in the seats.

Ever since the first RIF, this company has chosen to cripple itself, a choice they continue to make.

Pretty sure we hired 400 something in 1994. Wish I had kept my new hire seniority list from back then.

I could be totally wrong on my info, before my time and am sure you are correct.. But 400 with only the old training center and the off property 74 classic sim, makes you go hmm. SDF, MIA, ANC sims now... The training pipeline issue is solvable

Numerous events have been cancelled and or re-scheduled due to covid exposure. In one instance alone 5 sim sessions and 2 PT sessions were cancelled because of one person exposing 11 others. They were all quarantined for 10+ days. Amongst them were 2 instructors which of course caused a snowball effect with additional training events being cancelled.

This has been going on for a year and a half and will probably keep going on for the foreseeable future. There are other issues for sure but this doesn’t help.

OT at 150% pretty much guarantees the majority of instructors will choose to fly. Can you blame them? IF the company was serious about speeding up training (they aren’t) they’d offer the same 150% open time in the school house.

These are just a few examples, there are many others.

..but you’re correct. Most of it is solvable BUT while one side of the company wants to grow there seems to be another faction which resists any growth? Don’t know why but it feels like we’re working for the government with many different departments who aren’t communicating each other.

Agree 100%

The larger the seniority list grows the more churn we have that is not new hire related. The CQs, 6 month, 12 month, upgrades, transfers, take up alot resources.

What is the MD’s weight/bulk capabilities compared to a 76/77/74/A330F? Just wondering where it falls in line with these airframes.

The A333P2F has about 20% more containerized cube than a 763F, but 10% less than a MD11F.

The A333P2F's pax payload is about 10% more than a 763F, but 33% less than a MD11F.

The factory -200 based A330F can carry more weight further than a 763F, but doesn't really have more cube.

The 744F and the 773ERSF are pretty darn similar in overall capabilities...looks like Big Twin has a bit more cube, while the whale carries a bit more weight. I think 744BCFs may trail the Big Twin in both metrics.