American/us air hiring vs consolidation

[i fly boxes]

I am wondering what everyone thinks going forward, with 14000 pilots on the date of closing, obviously they will have the most of any airline. Us air is hiring a lot of pilots right now and American will as well soon. With retirements there will be some years where it hits 900 per year in 5 years or so but do you think they plan on keeping 14000 pilots? Especially with the new 175s coming on line at the regional level. Deltas pilot group is way smaller than at date of closing on their merger and they haven't hired since 2008. You can't deny the need to replace the staggering amount of retirements at American but I am wondering if they may "right size" the airline for the first 2 or 3 years by simply not replacing retirements. I hope this is not the case and they continue to hire, that way starting next year pilots will have the choice of 3 legacy carriers and numerous low cost carriers.

 

[abefly]

Block hour minimums prevent that . They will have to hire!

 

[ackattacker]

Simply put, in the current economic environment there is no incentive to further reduce fleet counts anywhere among US carriers. Flights are full and profitable. And there is no significant overlap in route structures so not much redundancy where 2 small aircraft can be replaced by one large. What the future brings economically is anyone's guess, but I don't foresee an overall reduction in pilot numbers in the combined carrier.

The Delta merger was a slightly different story because there was more overlap and the merger occurred at the same time age 65 kicked in. Then the housing bubble burst and the economy nearly imploded, too.

 

[zymotic]

I am wondering what everyone thinks going forward, with 14000 pilots on the date of closing, obviously they will have the most of any airline. Us air is hiring a lot of pilots right now and American will as well soon. With retirements there will be some years where it hits 900 per year in 5 years or so but do you think they plan on keeping 14000 pilots? Especially with the new 175s coming on line at the regional level. Deltas pilot group is way smaller than at date of closing on their merger and they haven't hired since 2008. You can't deny the need to replace the staggering amount of retirements at American but I am wondering if they may "right size" the airline for the first 2 or 3 years by simply not replacing retirements. I hope this is not the case and they continue to hire, that way starting next year pilots will have the choice of 3 legacy carriers and numerous low cost carriers.

I don't know how many active pilots Delta has but FWIW there are around 12,700 active positions when adding up AA and US.

Also, while AA has a large amount of retirements in the future, US east has a large percentage just starting now. Contractual improvements for the East and new flight time rules are also driving hiring.

 

[Turtle21]

Ok, let's be realistic.. When, over the last 30 years, has any rosy prediction ever amounted to anything.. Other than lots more thorns!

 

[zymotic]

Ok, let's be realistic.. When, over the last 30 years, has any rosy prediction ever amounted to anything.. Other than lots more thorns!

True. However, I think realistic worse case scenario for the next 3-5 years is stagnation, not furloughs.

 

[Turtle21]

True. However, I think realistic worse case scenario for the next 3-5 years is stagnation, not furloughs.

I like being optimistic, so I always bet on more jets, and bigger jets... at the regionals.

 

[Carl S.]

At least my dues will go from 2.45% to 1% and I might actually have a real union to represent me, not just a select group of angry old farts...

 

[FR8mastr]

Block hour minimums prevent that . They will have to hire!

I agree they demanded our old block hour and min fleet protection, offered up this rolling scheme so they could help us all out with more hiring.
I'm so glad we have this benevolent management team looking out for our interests

 

[Green]

As the saying goes past behavior is a good indication of future behavior.

Doug Parker doesn't seem to be a big fan of expansion and ordering aircraft. He spends all of his energy making deals and looking for synergies. He is an outspoken advocate of consolidation. I would expect zero growth, higher pilot utilization, and increasing yields unless he opts for an early retirement. My guess is that he will improve the short term fundamentals in order to drive the stock price higher. Buying aircraft and hiring thousands of pilots does not help the near term bottom line.

I bet he keeps the airline right at block hour mins and hires only to replace retirements. Probably will fill the gaps in the international route map with increased codes sharing.

 

[johnnyb]

True. However, I think realistic worse case scenario for the next 3-5 years is stagnation, not furloughs.

Pilots with 15 months are upgrading on the East.

 

[jonjuan]

As the saying goes past behavior is a good indication of future behavior.

Doug Parker doesn't seem to be a big fan of expansion and ordering aircraft. He spends all of his energy making deals and looking for synergies. He is an outspoken advocate of consolidation. I would expect zero growth, higher pilot utilization, and increasing yields unless he opts for an early retirement. My guess is that he will improve the short term fundamentals in order to drive the stock price higher. Buying aircraft and hiring thousands of pilots does not help the near term bottom line.

I bet he keeps the airline right at block hour mins and hires only to replace retirements. Probably will fill the gaps in the international route map with increased codes sharing.

Yep-didn't someone mention Delta and Northwest were 14,000 pilots and are now under 11,000? You better believe they will squeeze every bit of efficiency/costs out of the pilots so they can compete.

 

[Flybywire44]

As the saying goes past behavior is a good indication of future behavior.

Doug Parker doesn't seem to be a big fan of expansion and ordering aircraft. He spends all of his energy making deals and looking for synergies. He is an outspoken advocate of consolidation. I would expect zero growth, higher pilot utilization, and increasing yields unless he opts for an early retirement. My guess is that he will improve the short term fundamentals in order to drive the stock price higher. Buying aircraft and hiring thousands of pilots does not help the near term bottom line.

I bet he keeps the airline right at block hour mins and hires only to replace retirements. Probably will fill the gaps in the international route map with increased codes sharing.

True, but the market was previously saturated.

The 777, 787 & 350 orders imply that American will indeed expand into the Asia, Australia and maybe Africa.

 

[Green]

True, but the market was previously saturated.

The 777, 787 & 350 orders imply that American will indeed expand into the Asia, Australia and maybe Africa.

Those orders you mention total roughly 70 aircraft. Give or take a few. There are something like 80 767 aircraft in the combined company. Many of them are long past their sell by date. I would be surprised if they are still flying 767's by the time the last 350/787 arrives. The 12 777's might represent growth but I'm sure some of the older 200's are getting ready for pasture over the next 5-10 years. Us Airways has some pretty old 330's as well.

They won't be able to compete 5-10 years down the road flying old gas guzzlers when the rest of the international carriers are flying the latest and greatest. So I would put money on minimal international growth (except for codesharing) and aircraft retirements as the new fleet arrives. With an airline of 12,000 pilots adding a few flights to NRT, SYD, PVG, etc won't translate into dramatic growth. I bet they do Africa and India via a codeshare with EK. Just my $.02. I'm usually wrong

 

[Green]

Pilots with 15 months are upgrading on the East.

True and it's an awesome deal for guys just out of new hire class. But to be fair that is years and years of reserve in PHL as an E-190CA. How many thousands in the right seat of other aircraft passed on that CA slot? And we haven't seen an SLI yet. I think people are forecasting stagnation after integration is complete and Doug can get to work on his 'synergies.'

 

[ackattacker]

Those orders you mention total roughly 70 aircraft. Give or take a few. There are something like 80 767 aircraft in the combined company. Many of them are long past their sell by date. I would be surprised if they are still flying 767's by the time the last 350/787 arrives. The 12 777's might represent growth but I'm sure some of the older 200's are getting ready for pasture over the next 5-10 years. Us Airways has some pretty old 330's as well.

They won't be able to compete 5-10 years down the road flying old gas guzzlers when the rest of the international carriers are flying the latest and greatest. So I would put money on minimal international growth (except for codesharing) and aircraft retirements as the new fleet arrives. With an airline of 12,000 pilots adding a few flights to NRT, SYD, PVG, etc won't translate into dramatic growth. I bet they do Africa and India via a codeshare with EK. Just my $.02. I'm usually wrong

I agree aircraft orders don't imply growth, necessarily. There's a lot of aircraft in the combined fleet that could be retired at any moment. But code-sharing only goes so far. I think Dougie has grander plans. IMHO. At some point you want to capture that international revenue yourself and not just give it away to your competitors. Aircraft orders at least means that they plan to stay in the big aircraft business.

 

[zymotic]

Pilots with 15 months are upgrading on the East.

That would seem significant if it wasn't for the fact that a 190 Captain makes virtually the same as a narrowbody F/O. That is the sole reason guys are getting the quick 190 upgrade. Narrowbody CA is still going to guys on the East no more junior that 87 or 88 hires.