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Focus: United Airlines grapples with pilots avoiding the captain's chair
(www.reuters.com)
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this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2023
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As to the first part, yes, they aren't taking the position. It's due to the way seniority works in the industry. While they may have a good schedule as a first officer, captains are generally more senior, so should they take the upgrade, they end up holding a much worse schedule than before. Normally the way to make up for that is a much higher pay rate. But it comes down to what each individual wants in their career.
As to the second, they could definitely keep people dual-seat qualified, but it would introduce an insane amount of complexities as well. Each seat would need a full qualification course, they have requirements for annual training that would increase, and anyone being told to fly as a first officer would not do it for less than their captain pay rates (generally due to contractual reasons). There ends up being way more to it than most people realize.
And the answer to your first paragraph is to give them the good schedule of first officer for three weeks of the month and the bad schedule of captain for one week. Pilots may be willing to tolerate a crappy schedule for part of their month instead of the whole month.
And the qualifications of being a captain flow from the experience of being a first officer on an aircraft. In order to be a captain on a flight, you need to qualify to be a first officer. So, it isn't like United has to pay for maintaining two separate certifications, just the more onerous one. And you make the dual flight role optional. You let pilots decide if they want to fly in a captain role at captain pay all the time or if they are willing to sacrifice pay for seniority on a schedule for a majority of the month. Let the union vote on it as an option.
That is 100% not correct. I've held both roles at a US carrier, it's not nearly as simple as you say to keep people dual qualified. Which I why I mentioned this seeming like a good idea at surface level, but it falls apart when you look at everything the pilots and company have to deal with to do it.
And most unions have been quite opposed to tactics like this in the past, as management has used to it abuse right-seat qualified captains even more (by making them fly as FOs on trips that need it) in the past.
What needs to be done to keep a captain qualified as a first officer? What is the legal difference between the two that requires two different qualifications?
And I understand that the union would want to protect captains from being demoted on flights, which is why the airline and the union would need to negotiate on this program. However, you still have an absolute shortage of qualified captains and this can be a way to address it. Why not at least try?