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Higgins, professor of Aviation at the University of North Dakota.

AV Nation what is going on?

And welcome back to the Pilot to Pilot podcast.

My name is Justin Seams and I am your host.

Today's episode is with Dr. Jim Higgins.

And yes, as you would recall, that means it is a state of the Industry episode.

I apologize for not having these out sooner.

Schedules can be hard to mix up and life's crazy.

You know, life never stops being crazy.

But we are also, as pilot the pilot working on something pretty cool and pretty big.

I highly recommend you either follow us on Instagram, go to our website, sign up to stay up to date with news that are coming out because hopefully this time next month we'll be dropping it.

It's gonna be pretty cool and I think you guys are all gonna like it.

But today is the state of the industry.

We talk anything and everything state of the industry.

We talk Boeing, we talk airlines, we talk hiring, we talk everything you want to know.

So go ahead and listen to this, Share it with your friends, share it with your dad, your mom.

Who knows, maybe they want to be a pilot as well.

But AV Nation, I hope you enjoy today's episode and without any further ado, here's Dr. Jim Higgins and the state of the industry.

Jim, what's going on, man?

Welcome back to the Pilot to Pilot podcast and the State of the Aviation Industry podcast.

Always always good to be with you, Justin, and always good to talk with your listeners.

Yeah, it's always Good to have you on.

It's probably one of the most requested things too.

You know, it's.

When's Jim coming back on?

When's Jim coming back on?

It's like, we try, we try, I promise.

Sometimes it's difficult, difficult to get schedules going and just a lot going on.

And there is a lot going on in the aviation world as well.

You know, Spirit, since last time we talked, I don't think they were back in to bankruptcy, but they are back in bankruptcy now.

There is some movement with Boeing that we'll touch on where they're going to go from 38 to 42 jets, which as you said before we started recording, is a really big deal.

We're going to talk about hiring, we're going to talk about, about just some other cool stuff that's going on in the industry, hopefully.

Cool.

And also touch on what you're worried about, what you're concerned about.

I did ask on Instagram if you had any questions for us.

So if we have any time, I will kind of scroll through my phone so we see my phone.

I'm not texting someone.

I am actually looking up questions.

I promise, Jim.

I promise.

Or I might be texting someone.

You never know.

But I might fall asleep.

Just kidding.

My students.

Justin.

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

It's nothing no different than class.

Right.

But yeah.

So let's start it off right there.

I mean, I think the number one topic with everyone right now, with everyone right now, probably with your students as well, is they just see the pullback in hiring a little bit.

And I say a little bit because on some airlines end that really isn't the case.

I mean, I know hiring has picked back up.

What has changed is the pool of applicants that's available.

At least that's the way I see it as a lot of spirit pilots are kind of full, not necessarily flooding, but are deciding to jump ship.

And there is a pool of highly qualified pilots right there that have already passed 121training, that already done CQS, that have flown Airbuses, that have flown whatever Spirit's doing.

And airlines are kind of like, oh cool, we'll take them now because they're already qualified, know they can pass training.

Spirit, from what I hear, has pretty tough training.

And they do their check rides in a very short amount of simulators, four.

Or six sim sessions or something like that.

They have, they have a few more extra cpt.

Yeah, but, but it's, it's known to be very tough.

Spirit pilots are very good hires by 121 carriers.

So if you can pass, they are the way airlines look at it, if you can pass spirit training, you can pass our training.

And airlines don't want you to fail because that's a lot of money that they're spending and they want you in there and they want to make money off you, and they can't do that if you fail their training.

Right?

Right.

Yeah.

No, that's absolutely right.

Well, let's talk about that hiring then, just for a second.

So, you know, it depends on how you look at things, right?

If you look at things historically, we've actually had two decent years.

I know it doesn't feel like it because two years ago, the previous between four and two years ago, we had record hiring.

We were north of 12,000 pilots hired at the legacies, which we'd never seen before.

And we had two years in a row of that, which is just crazy.

And then last year and the year before, we turned to more of a still historically high number, but it felt a lot less because the spigots weren't completely turned on like we saw the previous two years.

Now, I will tell you a couple things.

The big uncertainty is the economy, right?

I mean, things are looking really good right now.

So I know Delta just came out and they're estimating a very strong year up ahead.

I know United's kind of said the same thing, and so that's good.

We know the retirements haven't even kicked in en masse at some of these carriers.

And then on top of that, I know through internal memos at both United and at Delta, and I haven't heard yet on American, but we have heard that at those other two that they're going to return to the hiring levels we saw a few years ago.

So you're going to see probably 3 to 4,000 pilots hired at United and at least 3 to 4,000 pilots hired@ Delta next year.

And those are kind of your bellwether.

And I don't know about American.

I've heard they're going to do a lot of hiring, too.

But I haven't heard from anyone that's seen any company memos or anything like the others have or any public plans announced.

But it would follow suit that they would also do a lot of hiring and those big three, and not to leave out Southwest, not to leave out UPS and all the others.

But as those go, we typically see the rest go because that's where a lot of the guys and gals from regionals are pushing towards, you know, and it just it causes a really nice churn that allows people to move on through their career.

So barring some kind of a financial catastrophe, you know, world war outbreak, pandemic, et cetera, it's looking like the next couple years are going to be very, very good.

I don't know if we're going to quite get back to the 12 to 14,000 hired, but certainly we'll have a lot more than what we've seen in the last couple years, which will be good for everybody.

Just one quick point about Spirit.

You are right.

As the furloughs continue to kick in there, they're in a double bankruptcy, which is very unusual.

But as those furloughs kick in there, those pilots are going to get fast tracked to other carriers for all the reasons you just said.

The Spirit training is known to be difficult.

I know of people that went to Spirit didn't get through training there and they were really good pilots and they ended up being sent away.

If you make it there, you're absolutely in good shape and the other airlines know that.

And so that could cause a little bit of an impact in the hiring.

But when you look at the, when you look at the entire hiring picture, it's still not going to take all the slots away.

I know some people might be wondering that.

Yeah, no, I mean, it won't take all the slots away.

It might make it a little harder for your app to be seen because maybe they're looking for different things.

And that changes all the time too, right?

What airlines want at certain times is different.

You know, they might hire a ton of 121 guys and maybe either they leave, they go somewhere else, they get a little burned, or maybe they don't pass training.

Like, all right, well, now we're not going to do a bunch of 121 guys.

Now we're going to focus on some corporate guys and now they're going to focus on military.

So they definitely have different periods.

The only thing that you can really do is just keep updating your application and make sure it's fresh.

Make sure that when your eyes, when there are eyes on it, it is something that they want to hit submit.

Because sometimes the hardest part is just getting your application in front of their eyes to see, to hit like, all right, proceed to the next step.

And that's where you can, you can get with any kind of recruiting coaches or any kind of those programs, they can help you make sure your resume perfect.

Because, I mean, I've, I know when I was applying, I applied to Delta and American.

I remember Delta.

They're like, if you use Delta and airlines as two words, you would not get hired.

That's a big deal.

Air lines.

And I was like, big deal.

Same with Alaska.

Yeah, yeah, It's.

It's their airline.

They can call it what they want.

Right.

So no, to your point about putting your best foot forward, that that's absolutely important.

I, too, am a big believer in.

In a lot of these services that are out there, everyone kind of has their favorites.

I don't particularly have favorites.

I've heard good things about most of them.

It's well worth it.

It might be several hundred dollars depending on what you have them do.

But I know when my wife went to work at her airline, she sat down with one of them and they went through everything.

And I'm not saying it made all the difference in the world, but it was shortly after they did a review of her at the time, airline apps and a review of her resume.

It was shortly after that she got called by the airline she works at now and then also Delta, which she didn't work out for an interview.

So, I mean, is it a coincidence?

I don't know.

She certainly was qualified.

But all that being said, I think that that really helps.

And there will be good opportunities down the road for all these carriers and there's going to be lots of paths.

So I think that's very important.

What's the overall vibe with your students?

Because when I talk to people that are either in training or looking for jobs or even a cfi, they seem a little bit down because when they got in the training, they were promised that this is going to happen forever.

Right.

The shortage is here.

It's not going to slow down.

This is how it is.

And when you've been in the industry, you know that you don't ever kind of listen to forever or this is going to happen in one month.

You know, you kind of have.

Have a realistic view.

Like, all right, they say one month.

It's probably going to be six months.

Yeah.

If they, if they say forever, it's going to be two years.

I mean, the timelines can differ, but you don't want to hold on to those words because they are trying to recruit you, they are trying to get you to come to this airline, and they want to make it sound as good.

And in the moment, that is what it is.

Are upgrades in 18 months.

But that can change.

It's all fluid.

But there was this, this kind of like this promise, you know, that they.

They see all Their buddies go, maybe they even skip the regionals, go straight to United, maybe they are at a regional for a year, then they move on to Delta, you know, and now there's a little bit of stagnation.

And it's harder to get a CFI job when that happens.

It's harder to get low time pilot jobs.

That happens because like you said, the natural progression of when people get hired, it opens up other jobs, isn't happening as much anymore.

Anymore.

That's right.

And I will tell you, amongst the colleges, and I'm assuming it's the same way in other places, there has been a oversaturation of incoming students, which is good, but they've flooded the capacity.

But we're also not seeing the instructors hired that we used to before.

For instance, at und, I think they hired, don't quote me on this, but something about 120 instructors this year.

I'm sorry, 80 instructors this year.

They had 150, 160 apply.

So they're batting about 50%.

I know it's the same at other colleges as well.

And that's very unusual because, you know, two years ago, I'm not going to say we hired everybody that applied, but you had a very good chance of getting hired as a CFI here and that was the same everywhere.

So you're right, they are feeling it downstream.

Look to your point, it's 100% correct.

I've said this before on this podcast, that whenever times are really, really good and everyone's getting hired, all of a sudden people think this is the way it's going to be forever.

And then whenever there are people furloughed and no one's getting hired and it looks like it's going to, people say, this is how it's going to be forever.

And you and I both know, because we've been in the industry long enough, that the only thing constant, sorry to borrow cliche, but is the change.

It's just going to change.

And we're seeing it live out.

Just in the last five years, we've seen a little microchasm of that.

We've gone from before the pandemic, this unbelievable ramp up the hiring to like boom, potential furloughs and no hiring for a while and then boom, back into this kind of medium upswing and then to where we're looking at hiring a lot.

But then you have a carrier like spirit that's furloughing.

So you're kind of seeing the whole basket of outcomes in a short period of time.

And this is A little bit more like what it used to be in the 80s, 90s and later.

I know your dad was in flying.

My dad was an airline pilot too, and he started out Northwest, ended up Continental, then to ups and he retired now.

But when you look back at his career, I've mentioned this before, but about a third of it was spent on furlough, on strike, you know, just looking for a job.

So at least it's not back to that.

You know what I mean?

I mean, we're still not seeing a complete stability, but it's a lot better than it.

Than it used to be.

Yeah.

And it's crazy how, you know, one airline can really be struggling when everyone, not everyone else, when the majority of other airlines are having the best finances they've ever had.

And it just.

Yeah, I mean, I know it does come down to the type of company you are and who you're serving and how you're running that, but it just seems like right now, I mean, I brought that up because you mentioned the furloughs, because we do have an airline that's furloughing and it's awful.

Never want to see it, but.

Yeah, it's just.

It's insane.

This, this industry.

There's nothing like it.

I mean, at least I haven't found anything that is like it.

But it's just, you gotta be along for the ride.

And when you think, just kind of have some, some perspective too.

Because if you think it's bad now, you have no idea what it was like with the lost generation.

And I'm not trying to minimize the situation that you're going in, But I mean, 9, 11, and then you had a crisis.

I, I have flown with people that were furloughed for 12 years.

They're like, I was furloughed for 12 years'.

Took me 12 years to get a call back.

And there's some airlines that have double furloughees.

Yeah, they got furloughed, got called back, and then a year or two later got furloughed again.

Peace.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, talk about a rough.

I don't mean to laugh, but I don't know what else to do when you say that.

It's just like, oh, man.

Yeah, it's.

It's insane.

So it does seem like it's different than what it was two years ago.

And that is unfair.

I do hear you, but it is, is going to be a job that you can still have a very successful career and you're going to get hired.

It's going to work out.

And I also do want to say, a lot of times when you get hired, in the moments when the industry doesn't look like it's doing the best, those turn out to be the best times to be hired.

My buddy, when he was getting hired in Covid, it was like, oh, dude, I don't know if you want to go there.

You know, like, everyone's like, what are the airlines going to be like?

What are things going to look like?

And then he finds out he can upgrade in two years.

Now he's a Delta captain, he's making a ton of money, and he's got great seniority, and it was the perfect time for being him to be hired and get in with seniority.

He wasn't the moonshot captain at Delta that was like age 24.

He's probably listening to this.

He's like, how dare you compare me?

Sorry, sorry.

Well, I mean, I guess that guy did quite well.

I mean.

But you know, to that point, if you go back to our very first podcast that we did together, it was during the beginning and crux of COVID if you recall, you and I discussed this and I even went as far.

People maybe thought it was a little bit nuts.

You didn't think it was nuts.

But I said, actually, now is a pretty good time to come into the industry because it's going to take you three to five years to train.

The COVID stuff should be done by then.

Which it turned out it was actually done maybe in two and a half, three years.

So if anything, I overestimated the impact.

Not by much.

But the point is, those people that came in in 19, 20, 21, they timed it perfectly.

But when you first came into the industry, like no one was hiring because we were shut down in a pandemic during that time.

But now look at them.

They've absolutely followed that trajectory that you mentioned.

And so what we know is in statistics, we call it, everything regresses to its mean.

We do know that we will get these variances, these perturbances, these disruptions, but over time, just like a smooth S and P fund index, over time, you can smooth it out.

It just always seems to rise and little variations here and there, but overall the trend is positive.

And there's no reason not to believe that we've overcome it.

Everything we've overcome 9, 11, we've overcome the Great Recession.

We actually had a bird flu pandemic between 01 and 08 that actually disrupted traffic.

And we overcame that.

We overcame Covid.

I mean, what we've learned is the industry is pretty resilient.

It doesn't mean that people aren't having pain like we see at Spirit.

And just as an aside, I know I've been kind of vicious on spirit management.

Maybe vicious too strong.

I've been kind of hard on spirit management, but I mean, come on, they were losing money when everyone else was making money.

And the only people that you can blame for that, I'm sorry, squarely, is the management team there.

And they've really let their people down.

And the other thing that I'm just.

This is, you know, you know, I have a union background, so this is kind of easy.

But the other thing that greatly bothers me there is, you know, they went through this bankruptcy stuff and the first round and they arranged their debtor and possession, their DIP financing, which is we've seen in the past.

But then they all paid themselves, you know, the management paid themselves pretty good bonuses there.

And then now we're going right into a second furlough, you know.

And so, I mean, it's like, what?

Now some people will say, you know, when there's turbulent times, who do you want running your operation?

Do you want Michael Jordan or do you want the person who's willing to do it for the cheapest amount of pay?

And I get that a little bit.

But keep in mind this was pretty much the same management team that got them to where they were.

So I'm not trying to be mean, but it wasn't Michael Jordan running their airline, if you know what I mean.

It was whoever it was.

And the other thing we have, we've talked about this once before, is the low cost carrier business model been exposed?

Right.

And certainly in the case of Spirit, you can say yes, but there are low cost carriers that are doing just fine.

You know, Frontier and Allegiant.

Now Frontier has slowed its growth a little bit, but it's still growing.

Allegiant's doing fine financially.

So, you know, there are companies that have figured it out.

I know that Scott Kirby's been out there saying the low cost business model is broken.

Yeah, yeah.

And it's interesting for him to say that that hasn't been proven yet.

Yes, in the case of Spirit, but that could have just been a management problem or just some other external factor.

But you know, these companies.

I don't think the model's been exposed at all.

But we'll see.

I mean, time will tell for sure.

I don't.

Something stuck in my throat.

I mean, to choke you up on that.

Yeah.

Right.

I don't know if the model has been exposed per se, but I do think the bigger airlines have figured out how to take some of their customers and I think it exposed weaknesses in the model and I think only certain airlines were prepared for those weaknesses or they were prepared better than some of the airlines.

Now can the bigger carriers, can they find a way to bring, get more customers and really kind of hurt the other low cost carriers?

Maybe.

But I agree with you where I don't think the low cost carrier model is completely exposed and completely done with.

But I do think that, you know, the big airlines, they kind of figured it out and now they're kind of teetering like, all right, well, premium is really hot right now.

It's like, how far do we dive in the premium bucket versus how far do we try to take any more of these customers?

So, yeah, it's kind of an interesting kind of question that they have.

And one thing about Spirit too, and this isn't bashing them at all, it's just the cyclical nature which we talked about hiring also is with companies as well.

There wasn't too long ago when Delta wasn't doing great.

It wasn't too long ago when every article, article you read about United was terrible press, it was dragging people off airplanes or it was just unfortunate things.

And now you look at United and everything that you're reading is like, oh my gosh, this is the greatest airline ever.

You look at Delta's profit and you're like, oh my gosh, this is the greatest airline ever.

You know, so everything is cyclical and everything, like you said, reverts to the mean.

They're going to be up here, then they're going to go down, then they're all going to kind of come back and the top three, and I don't know as much about Southwest of the history, but, and what they're going through is wild as well.

But the top three, plus Southwest will say so.

And they all kind of go up and down, but they seem to ride the same line over.

You look at it for like a 50 year period.

Yeah, no, that's, that's absolutely correct.

We have absolutely seen what I would call a cross pollinization of business models.

So you've seen the legacy carriers.

What you've really seen is they now offer this basic economy product which, you know, there's no prearranged seats.

There's, you know, you have to pay baggage fees.

It's very tantamount and similar to what we see on the low Cost carriers.

So United, Delta, American, they now compete like you said, by offering this lowest piece.

And then like you said, they also have done very well with the premium products.

And if you look at some of the low cost carriers, they're starting to move into premium a little bit as well.

So you're seeing this cross pollinization of that.

One quick note about Southwest.

My big thing on Southwest is they're juggernaut airline.

They've done really well and you know, about three, four years ago they started running into operational problems.

You know, the big question mark on Southwest from an investor point of view has always been okay, they dominate domestically, they've got their business model dialed in, but they don't really do much internationally.

You know, South America, Caribbean, Canada, stuff like that's fine.

They're you know, looking at Hawaii, some European stuff, but you know, what about Asia, what about Australia, what about the rest of the world?

But you know, they always seem to be find a way to continue to expand.

Just this last month, I don't know if you caught that, but they're going to Alaska.

Now that's new for Southwest.

Yeah, that's a new one for Southwest.

So they're always finding new ways to get more market share.

And again, you hate to think of it like this.

It's what we call an airline death.

If for some reason Spirit doesn't emerge from this second bankruptcy or its days are limited, that capacity will be soaked up by airlines like, well, all the ones we've talked about.

But Southwest and United and American and Delta it really well.

And one last point, you brought it up about Delta.

Delta has just been killing it on profitability and they just came out as you noticed, with a new guidance on it.

And I mean they're making more money than we've ever seen an airline make.

So props to them.

You're absolutely right.

Everything's functioning very well there.

Their optimization on the revenue management is unlike anything I've seen.

They control their fuel with their own refinery.

I mean they've really got this thing dialed in.

You know, it's taken years to learn how to do it, but they really do seem to do it.

It's not to say the other airlines haven't figured it out, but there's just no doubt right now today in terms of just profitability, not looking at anything else.

United's really got it dialed in and yeah, it's looking good for them.

Yeah.

And I mean just because it's working today doesn't mean it's going to work in five Years, right?

Amen, brother.

You never know.

Yeah, you never know.

I do have a question.

I was looking on my phone, someone brought a very, you know, it's very out there right now, the government shutdown that really, really affects aviation.

What's government contracted or what's under the government?

Controllers, unhappy controllers calling out sick.

Pretty sure that's what stopped the last one from what I've been reading is that there's a lot of pressure because no one went to work.

And if we don't have our airlines operating, our GDP suffers considerably.

And the way the comp, the way the country works just does not work as well.

And so we need airlines, we need people in.

So what are your thoughts on the government shutdown and what it means for aviation and aviation safety?

Yeah, great, great question.

As you know, airlines touch anywhere from estimated 10% of our GDP.

It's responsible for 10 because it, you know, transports, logistics, whatnot.

Some have that number as high as 15%, depending on what study you look at.

So when it's disrupted, it absolutely hurts the globe or not.

Not just the United States economy, the global economy.

So you're right.

So the shutdown, you know, the ATC system is already stressed because they don't have enough controllers.

They have to retire at 55, I think.

And you know, it can take up to three years.

I just saw the numbers the other day.

It can take up to three years to get fully position qualified in a route center tower can take up to, you know, a year and a half.

That's before.

And by fully position qualified, that means you're allowed to be on your own as a controller and not have a supervisor if you've ever been flying.

And you hear the second voice come over the top of the first, that's a person.

Don't do that, don't do that.

Don't turn.

Yeah, exactly.

And a lot of that's going on.

So it takes about as long to hatch a full blown controller as it does a pilot, which we all know is a long period of time.

So this problem's not going away anytime soon.

And now when you add to it the government shutdown, which of course controllers are exempt from that.

I do have friends in the FAA that are not.

And what they'll.

Because I do a lot of research with the faa, what'll happen is during a shutdown, unfortunately we have a lot of experience with this.

Now we'll get a message from our FAA contacts saying, look, I have not been designated as safety critical.

Therefore, after this date, if the government Shut down.

I cannot respond to your text, I cannot respond to your emails, I cannot respond to anything.

And that does have an effect on certain positions if your position's not deemed safety critical.

Now the air traffic controllers are deemed safety critical, but there's still some secondary and periphery effects.

Some of their support staff, some of the other things.

And what happens is then is their job workload increases because some of the things that they normally didn't necessarily have to do or they had support for, that goes away.

And so it doesn't take much in an already stressed situation, whether it's a few key people calling in sick, whatever the case may be, it doesn't take much to upset the system.

And so the government shutdown certainly is affecting this.

And I think there's been a lot of articles in the last few days about how much it's affecting it.

You know, I don't know about any specific, like sick actions or whatever, but I could tell you it's already a stress situation and there's no way that this shutdown helps it at all.

Yeah, I mean, I think it was Burbank.

I think Burbank was like, hey guys, we're not going to have a controller from this time to this time in the middle of the night.

I don't, man, I, I don't want to say airports, but I think there's one in Tennessee.

I don't think, I don't know if it was Nashville was having issues as well.

I mean, and then you look at airports that already have issues like Newark.

I mean, this just makes it even worse.

And it just, it's just really unfortunate.

And then it goes past kind of the work itself.

It goes also to the psych.

Psychological effects of it.

You're not getting paid for a very high stress job where you, you just mentioned you are doing more.

And I'm sure after a while you're just like, you know, a pilot makes a mistake, you're just like, what am I doing this for?

Like, why am I here?

I can't pay my bills with this because I'm not getting paid to do this right now.

And I'm just supposed to hope that my paycheck comes and, and if I miss a payment on my loan, like, or my mortgage, whatever it is, you just hope that they understand that I'm a government employee and I haven't been paid.

So it's gonna be okay.

I mean, there's only so much that a pizza can do to like, raise morale.

You know, when people buy them pizzas, it's just you want to see it stopped, you want to see it ended because you want to see them get paid and you want to just have the safest and the best system in the background and highly paid, highly motivated people to work is going to do that.

And with a shutdown, it's hard to have highly motivated, highly paid people because one, they're not getting paid, right?

No.

Well said.

I mean, irrespective of one's politics, I think we can all come down pretty hard on the political system for letting the government shut down yet again.

The fact that we can't get this worked out in this day and age is ridiculous.

I don't even care who's right, I just care what's right.

The old CRM idea, don't focus on who, focus on what.

And right now you're absolutely right.

I mean, just case in point, here's a case in point.

If a controller right now wants to fill, if they want to fill out an asap, which is equivalent to a pilot's asap, a reporting program that, that gives you some immunity, helps the safety system increase.

The vendors that handle that, they can still fill it out and presumably their protections will still be there.

But it's not being processed right now because the contractors and the folks that do that aren't doing it right now.

Right.

And so those go into a hole.

So let's say you had like an altitude incident, right?

And these are just as big a deals for controllers as they are for pilots, right.

In some cases, if a controller gets too many of these things, they call them deals, they get too many deals.

You know, it can mean that they go to remedial training, they have to re qualify, or it can even mean, you know, termination.

And so, you know, a pilot has an altitude deviation, as long as no one gets hurt, you fill out your asap, get it turned in, you know, get blessed by your event review committee and you move on.

That doesn't exist right now and that's just for the controllers.

And that's just one example of some of these support systems that aren't available right now.

I mean, I've even heard, I don't know if this is true or not, but I mean, just think about this.

It's gonna sound kind of silly, but like the cleaning crews for the towers and the, you know, all that.

So now you're working.

I mean, I know it sounds like a minor thing, but it's cumulative.

You can't do safety reports now.

Your work area is going to be a trash no one's vacuuming, you know, I mean, now are you going to vacuum?

I mean, there's a vacuum in the closet.

I mean, and, you know, all these weird, weird things.

Multiply it by probably 10 or 20 other little variables.

That absolutely makes it a very difficult work situation.

What does this mean?

I mean, this has been thrown around.

This word that I'm about to say has been, has been brought up before.

There's been thoughts of it.

But it almost seems like in these situations, maybe it's not a bad idea for the privatization of atc.

Maybe it can protect jobs, maybe it can make sure they're well paid.

I don't know.

I mean, there's a lot of other arguments to it as well.

But at the very least, if this can ensure that they are going to have a job during a government shutdown and that things won't stop working and won't kind of degrade in the Swiss cheese model of safety, is it worth it to pursue it?

Is it worth it to look at it?

I mean, what are your thoughts on that?

Well, privatization, of course, that issue has been around for a while.

We have some great examples of it in the world with Canada being one of the biggest ones.

When they went to nav Canada, you know, there's pros and cons, likely.

And the other thing that there's just a lot of unknown.

You know, Canada is one thing.

When they went to privatization, you can look at that and say there's an example.

But the truth is there's nowhere else in the world that has the traffic system and the capacity and the number of operations that we do.

And you could probably combine all the others and they won't come close to us.

If you look at a map anytime on Flightaware or whatever, we're a beehive, right?

And other places just have little trickles relative to what we see here.

There's certainly some exceptions to that.

So when we say, well, we should do what they've done elsewhere, you are probably comparing apples to oranges.

But that being said, it still may be the best thing.

But here's my question for you, and this is no knock on my friends in the faa, you know, in order to pull this off, you know, there's going to be a lot of unforeseen outcomes and, you know, things that happen with it.

And we saw what happened with next gen and we've seen what's happened with UAS integration.

It just hasn't gone well.

And so now if we told ATC that you have to Privatize.

I really think it sounds good on paper.

I mean, it makes a lot of sense in some areas, but it's just the sausage making.

I'm worried of what's going to happen during the sausage making.

It's like really bad construction.

Right now.

They're having really bad taxiway construction in Chicago.

And so like, I don't know if you've seen an ads or not or an as the X printout of what's going on there, but it's phenomenally backed up.

I mean you're looking at minimum in some cases two hour taxis just to get, you know, from one apron gate to another.

It's really bad.

So I would say the same thing is going to happen during the privatization piece.

And then the last piece is the user fees.

When it does privatize, the only way to really support that is through full blown user fees, which is fine.

And the airlines have been after this for years because they feel they pay a disproportionate amount.

But that would have a pretty significant effect on general aviation.

You could probably, probably see, I mean, I've seen estimates that go as high as $20 a flight hour.

So if you're paying 150 for your Cessna, 172 for training and 50 for your instructor, you could probably add on another 20.

You know, I mean it just, it would, it would add up is the thing.

And so the question is, is what would happen to our infrastructure for building new pilots?

I mean, my guess is the universities would probably figure out how to absorb it.

You know, the large flight schools would probably be okay.

I don't know about the mom pop, FBOs and whatnot.

It could be, you know, I worry about that.

So long answer, short answer is I don't know, Justin.

I've gone both ways in the past.

I've been on pro privatization and I've been against it.

Right now, today my biggest concern is, I don't know that we could pull it off without a lot of pain.

Even if it is a better system.

I don't know if we can pull it off.

Yeah, I mean, anytime you change things, there's going to be some kind of pain.

And in aviation, unfortunately, that pain can mean lives.

That pain can mean a lot of bad, bad things or some things.

It's like, oh, we just lost this one document.

Oh, no.

But no, this is very real and, and very much about lives.

It is interesting.

Bring up the fact of user utilization.

Like, I mean, does that mean if I'm flying my airplane, I'm like, hey, November 524 Bravo whiskey.

I'd like to pick up flight following.

They enter in my tail number.

Like, oh, it looks like you are out of credits.

We can take a credit card over the phone or if you want, you can just put your fingerprint on your Garmin.

Yeah, there's an app for that.

Yeah, yeah.

But it is very interesting to think about the cost and will it mean more people are going to be flying VFR with no flight falling?

You'd imagine that would be fine.

So.

So think about this for a second.

I do not want to hijack the podcast, but there's a really interesting issue developing in this area.

User fees.

I don't know if you've been following us, but there's some airports around the country for general aviation that have started using ADS B data to automatically, automatically charge pilots.

And so pilots, you know, they'll charge it on the number of landings.

There's some other airports that use just cameras and they can take a look.

They can use AI to take a look at your in number and then they'll send you, you know, they'll go to the registration on record for that.

And, and, and so, and so, by the way, AOPA really opposes that because, you know, ADS B was supposed, you know, the theory behind ADS B is it was there for safety and for traffic avoidance and, and whatnot.

It was never, wasn't necessarily ever designed for user fees.

Yeah.

But on the other side of that, just to provide some counterbalance on the other side of that, you know, some of these smaller airports, they need, they need funds to pay the taxiways, they need funds to do the ramp.

So, I don't know, the government trust fund only goes so far for a lot of these infrastructure improvements.

And so, yeah, I mean, there's probably going to have to be a happy medium there.

But I get it.

We're one of the few countries where they call it the freedom to fly.

I mean, right now, Justin, if you don't violate airspace, I suppose you could go out in a lawn chair and some balloons and get airborne.

And as long as you go through the experimental process, someone will probably sign off on that.

Maybe there's no other country in the world that you could do that in.

Tomorrow you could go build your own airplane from scratch and prove that you built it yourself, slap experimental on there and go fly it.

Nowhere else can you do that.

So this freedom to fly is a pretty important thing.

And so whenever things interfere with that, I'm not giving any answers because I don't have the answers, but it's just something that has to be really balanced all around for everybody.

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Moving on a little bit.

We did mention that Boeing is going to produce more airplanes, which is big news because when you're limited to 38 and the FAA says, hey, this is your hard stop, we don't trust anything over this number.

When you finally announce that you can do more, it has to signal that there's confidence between the FAA and what is going on and what they're seeing.

And they have to like what they're seeing.

So I don't know if it's going to be an immediate, you know, hey, we're back to normal, everything's going to be certified.

But it definitely signals things are moving in the right way.

No, I, I agree.

So for those that don't know, during this whole 737 Max, and you know, Boeing, whatever word you want to call for it, when the FAA slapped basically limits on the amount of production in particular for the 737s, they said they were limited to 38 for a long time.

And that was for quality control reasons.

Just in this last month, Boeing put out 42, which means then that they've somehow gotten permission to put out more.

And now the latest guidance is that they're going to try to get into the 70 or their goal is in the 60s, maybe even the 70s per month.

And so that would be really good for the airlines, right?

Ironically, And I'm not a conspiracy person at all, but I just read on October 7th.

So just a few days yesterday, this podcast, airbus overtook the A320 overtook the 737 with 12,000 and some odd number.

And Airbus right now is producing more A320s per month.

They're doing 50 plus or minus 10amonth right now.

So they are doing a few more months, but their goal for next year is to go over 100amonth and Boeing doesn't have that.

So it looks like for the foreseeable future, Airbus is going to stay ahead in terms of deliveries.

So what is interesting to me is Airbus overtook Boeing and now Boeing's allowed to produce more aircraft.

I'm not saying there's a nexus there, but it is kind of interesting that it's always kind of been a source of pride between the two manufacturers.

What's the most popular, the 73 or the A320?

And you know, it looks like it's going to be the A320 for the, for the foreseeable future.

Yeah.

And then also it kind of goes back to, we're talking with hiring.

If Boeing is able to produce more airplanes, that's going to be more pilots.

They need to fly those airplanes.

And if you've been following along a lot of the kind of so called pullback and the pilot shortage or pullback in the hiring has been the fact that we don't have airplanes to fly.

There isn't a mass amount.

We, the whole industry needs more airplanes and you'll wear airplanes at every single airline and engines too.

That's another issue.

Yeah, but there just isn't the planes to put the pilots in to fly the people that want to go fly.

So the more Boeing can get going and the more you hear Delta, United, Americans say, hey, we're going to start hiring more, it's probably because Boeing's like, hey guys, we're going to have our airplanes built soon.

That's right.

Getting your airplanes you ordered a while ago, they're going to be showing up soon.

So prepare because when you hired, they're not hiring you for that moment, they're hiring you for the next six to nine months.

And they're trying to project what they're going to be doing and soon to nine months.

That's right.

The airlines have been caught flat footed before by not staying ahead of the hiring curves.

No doubt about it.

All the major CEOs have said they expect the Boeing deliveries to return to a near normal.

So they are basing their Hiring plans on that.

But it doesn't take a mathematician to figure this out.

There's a backlog of firm orders for the 737 across all models of about 725, plus options of about the same.

So if you're only doing 40amonth, 45amonth, you could see your years away at this current production level.

And even if they get to their goal of 60amonth, you're still probably a couple years out or a year and a half out.

So, I mean, it's gonna take a while.

And that's if people don't exercise their options.

So, I mean, business is good if they can execute on their quality control.

That's so much money.

I mean, when you think about 700 times 100 million or whatever it is to buy 737, I mean, then you get into the.

I honestly have no IDEA what a 737 cost.

So we'll call it 80, 90 million, maybe.

Yeah, I think that's right.

Yeah.

Who knows?

Someone's going to mess you.

Like, it's actually 130 million since inflation, whatever it is, it's an insane amount of money.

You're moving into billions and then you're moving into, like, trillions.

If they have to fulfill every single one of those orders, which is just.

No doubt cannot compute astronomical amount of money.

And the price for me and you, if you and I go and try to buy a 737, it's going to be a lot different than if American goes.

So, you know, so it will be lower.

And my guess is it's different based on the number of firm orders and, you know, timelines and whatnot.

If you want them sooner, you're probably gonna have to pay more.

Right.

The airlines didn't necessarily learn, you know, ancillary revenue strategies from the.

They've learned it a lot from places like Boeing were like, oh, you wanna move up in the line?

Sure, we can get you moved up in the line for an extra 10 million or whatever the case may be.

Yeah, it'll be interesting because I'm sure there have been some deals through this kind of downturn of what Boeing's had.

I'm sure they're like, hey, please stick with us.

You know, if this takes X amount of every month this takes, we'll take off this off the.

The bottom or the top end the.

The deal, we'll say, and then as time comes, maybe they're going to try to get that money back.

Like, all right, well, hey, we actually have them in front of You.

So if you want to get this plane, then you.

If we go back to our original deal, we'll make sure you have them when you got them.

That's right.

So it'll be interesting.

Absolutely.

That that went on.

There is no doubt that when Boeing was in the crux of its problems and you know, the CEOs were visiting the factory there of the major airlines, there's absolutely no doubt that they were.

What word do I want to use?

Leveraging.

Leveraging for the best possible deal for these things.

There's no doubt they got really, really good deals.

The other thing that happened is there were some airlines during COVID that and even after that decided they couldn't take the 737 or the Airbus.

And so they sold those off to places like United and Delta and they.

There are plenty ready to take those, those slots.

We kind of mentioned Spirit a little bit, but just.

And we don't have to, you don't have to go into like in depth details, but do you think Spirit makes it out of this bankruptcy or if they do make it out of this bankruptcy, do you give them a chance to actually continue as a profitable airline in the future?

Tough question.

I really hate to say this.

When you go into that double bankruptcy.

Well, this, this will be what we, we need to see.

Okay, so they went into bankruptcy the first time we've seen this.

But before they found some financing.

It's called first position financing or superior debt.

And so there's companies that specialize in that.

Right.

And so they put together a debtor and possession financing package, convinced a bankruptcy court that they'll be able to emerge and make profitability.

And that happened back at the beginning of the year.

Well, obviously it didn't work out.

Right.

We know that Spirit hasn't made the money they thought they would.

In fact, they're still losing money.

So now they've reentered bankruptcy, which is pretty unusual.

Now, a couple things.

There's three outcomes.

They're able to find a new financier.

It could be the same company from before that just has more stringent terms that are trying to double down and protect their investment.

That's possible.

But the creditors, the people that are owed money for the aircraft, the engines, ground equipment, whatever they may say, boy, I don't think they're going to make it.

I don't think they have a viable plan.

And they could try to petition the court to force liquidation so they at least recover some of their assets.

And I hate to say this to those of you that work at Spirit or those of you who rely on Spirit, I do think that that's a very real possibility.

Or the bankruptcy court could also just say the trustee that's looking this over saying, I don't see a viable plan here, a viable path forward.

Generally speaking, the philosophy in business bankruptcy courts is if the company will put together a plan, chapter 11, this is how we're going to emerge, this is how we're going to be successful.

And generally speaking, the trustees and the bankruptcy courts, because they want to protect the shareholders, they want to protect the employees and everyone else that's interested, they'll give them a pretty big benefit of the doubt.

And they certainly got that in the first bankruptcy.

I don't know how big of a doubt they're going to get on the second bankruptcy.

So I don't know.

We'll know soon though, because if they're forced into a Chapter seven, that's going to be announced soon because either the creditor committee or the secured creditor committee or they just couldn't find financing to emerge, we'll probably know in the next month or two, if not sooner than.

But if they are able to emerge to.

Your second question is what's their long term viability?

Look, they have to figure out what the problem is.

Their pilots aren't the highest paid pilots.

Their flight attendants are not the highest paid flight attendants.

They have relatively fuel efficient aircraft.

You know, so something.

And they're not figuring it out like Frontier is figuring it out and some of the others.

So something's wrong with their management.

In my opinion.

I'm sorry to keep going back to that.

In my opinion, if they emerge, their only real chance is to get some competent management in there that understands business plans.

Because clearly their business model, at least the way they're executing it with their current, current management is not working.

And that's also going to work against them.

My guess is one of the pieces of emerging from bankruptcy is going to be some type of control from the finance.

If somebody comes in and says, okay, we're going to give you 20 million to emerge from bankruptcy, but this is what we're going to need.

My guess is they're going to have to seed some operational control and that means they're going to bring in some experts from other carriers to maybe run it and that quite frankly, could be a good thing.

Again, I hate to keep meeting up on Spirit management, but they've already had a few chances and there's a lot of families out there that need that paycheck and A lot of customers out there that need to go from point A to point B.

And there's a lot of shareholders out there that have invested pretty hard earned money in those carriers.

Yeah, I'm dubious that if they keep doing the same thing over and over again that they'll ever be successful with.

The mergers that were proposed.

Right.

So obviously it was Spirit, frontier first and JetBlue kind of came in is like, nah, we're going to take them.

If either one of those would have gone through, do you think Spirit and their assets and what they did would have brought kind of the value down?

Because it did seem like it was just like a train headed down.

Right.

Like it seemed like it was like a train out of control.

We can look at back now.

Or do you think that what you said, they just need changing to figure out what's wrong?

If, if JetBlue or Frontier would have been able to go through with the purchase, they would have been able to be like, all right, we're actually gonna fully make it Frontier and we're gonna operate how Frontier operates and we're just gonna make money that way.

Same thing with JetBlue.

Yeah, great question.

Time honored.

Time honored.

Tradition in the airlines, we've seen it before, the fastest way to decrease unit cost and increase profitability is to merge, is to become bigger.

Because when you become bigger, you get the economies of density, economies of scope, economies of scale, all the things you learn about an MBA economics class.

So there's no doubt about that.

The one caveat on that is the merger has to go well, has to be managed well.

But you know, the people that lose their jobs in a merger are almost always middle management and upper management.

Because you don't need two directors of safety, for instance, you don't need two directors of soc, you know, you just don't.

And so as long as that process would have worked, I certainly believe if one of those mergers was allowed to have gone through that Spirit probably wouldn't be bankrupt.

They still might have had to furlough or right size.

Certainly a lot of middle management management people would have lost their jobs in that.

You know, it really depends who the surviving carrier is.

But there would be people from both sides that would have had to go.

So my guess is they would not be bankrupt at this point in time because, you know, they wouldn't be able to rely because you're bigger now and you can offset your losses with other parts of the operation.

Probably still wouldn't have been, you know, it certainly wouldn't have been A Delta, like a profitability juggernaut.

But I don't think they would have been in bankruptcy.

No, I still, you and I have talked about it.

I still think the judge that thought he was doing a solid for the passengers out there, I wonder if he ever reads that decision that he made.

He goes back and thinks, man, maybe, maybe I shouldn't have interfered.

Maybe, maybe as a federal judge, I shouldn't have thought I knew better than all these airline professionals.

We had that famous line too.

Wasn't like, this is for all the spirit fires, like this is for you.

Yeah, that's what he said.

Yeah, did him a solid, he said.

And kind of going off that statement right there, not necessarily what he said, but just the fact that they did say no to a merger.

Do you think that that then makes it, I don't know how to phrase this.

Say, let's say there's another merger that's being proposed.

Do you think that maybe the person that's on the judge for that is going to be like, all right, well, I don't really know if I can say no because last time someone said no, they're going to go out of business.

So here's the thing that has to happen.

First, the DOJ has to basically say you can't do it.

And then the companies either have to sue or the DOJ has to sue to stop it.

Right.

And that's when it makes it to the judges.

So under the current environment, under the Trump administration, there clearly is a business friendly environment.

Some of the, for instance, some of the refund rules that were in existence under the previous administration where if you had like a three hour delay, you had to receive your refund in cash within seven to 14 days or whatever, there was rules of that.

Those are all being paused or being reversed.

So we are seeing a very airline management friendly maneuvering right now.

So because of that, I would tend to think that to your question, if a new merger was proposed, my guess is given the current administration, it's unlikely that that DOJ would sue to stop it.

So it may never get to the judge.

The DOJ may step in and say, well, you have to make these adjustments so you don't oversaturate a market.

And you know, they're always looking, as we talked about before, they're supposed to look at the effect on the consumers.

Would this merger make prices, ticket prices go up, go down, stay the same?

And if they determine in some markets, you know, it'll be one surviving carrier, so they'll be free to charge whatever they may say, you have to give up some slots there, or you can only operate X number of flights, you know, whatever.

So you might see some of that.

But I think the merger would probably, by and large be allowed to go through with someone like that.

Now, if you have like a mega merger between like, you know, a United and a Delta American, probably not.

But if you're talking about Spirit and JetBlue, the problem is every time one of these companies goes for a merger, it costs them a lot.

It costs them a lot with their shareholders, but it also costs them a lot logistically because they have to pull about a third of their management teams off to just work on the merger, the potential for them, how it would work and what the plan would be.

And so there's a risk, there's a, there's an opportunity cost risk with doing that.

So it's always tough.

I know, I know we're running out of time here.

We could always talk forever.

But I do kind of have one question, which is kind of crazy to think about, but negotiations are going to start up again, right?

Like, so I think Delta end of next year maybe, and then everyone else kind of follows about six months after that.

But early negotiations are starting now.

I don't know if we can see like, way more like hard money, right?

So, like, I don't know how much.

The pay rates are going to skyrocket like they did previously.

Now there's probably room for cover for inflation.

There's probably maybe a little bit extra, but I don't see like 20%, 30%, whatever it was that we saw over four years.

What do you think is going to be a hot topic?

You have a lot of, you've done negotiations a lot.

You've been in charge, you've kind of known what pilots want.

But, but when the money is to a point where most people are comfortable, is there always just that crowd that's like, we need more money, we need more money.

Or do you start getting, yeah, or do you start getting more quality life centric?

Or do you start getting more like, hey, this is actually really annoying when you schedule us like this.

If we do schedule this trip, you have to pay us X amount this way.

Like, kind of talk about what goes, what goes on when, when the money is, is finally really good.

What is the thought process of, of negotiating teams and the pilots themselves and even companies?

So great question.

Historically, the rule of thumb from a union negotiator perspective and just from a labor perspective in general, is when times are good Economically, pilots typically go for the money.

They go for the bank account that day when times are bad, or in concessionary times, typically pilots will go for more longer term job security provisions like anti furlough or furlough protection, anti furlough, you know, retiree benefits, you know, bolstering, you know, certain work rules that maybe are a little bit less onerous on the money the company has to put.

So you go for scope is a classic one you really like.

Okay, you can't pay us the money now, we're gonna really scope this out then.

Cause that's something you can do.

They'll say, so that's the general rule of thumb.

Now it's interesting because you say, well, you know, we've, I mean, I don't know if you saw the news.

You keep track of the news better than I do.

I think it was last week or the week before.

The average pilot now makes more than the average physician.

Yeah, in the United States.

That's unusual.

I used to never be that way.

And so to your question, is it enough?

I don't know.

Remember we've talked about this too.

Pilots are remunerated based upon the amount of revenue that they generate for their company.

And so when you have record profitability, you know, I mean, think about what a long haul pilot's gonna make for the company on a Triple 7 between Atlanta and Narita.

I mean that's a lot of revenue just coming in on that one flight.

And so if we're paid based on the revenue we produce, and by the way, Delta saying they have record profits, everyone's like, wow, that's great.

You know who else is listening?

The negotiating team and the pilots, they absolutely are.

So I would love to be a negotiator in those times, but, but to your point, I do think, and you don't hear this too often in the industry and some people disagree with this, I do think pilots are generally pretty happy with their pay.

So I do think you will see another.

Even though it's good economic conditions and typically you go for more pay.

I do think to your point, you're going to see a lot of work, lifestyle improvements and you're going to start seeing work rules that will hopefully impact in a good way.

You know, maybe you go for commuting, by the way, that is these safe commuting things is one thing, but you know, pilots, some pilots for years have been after positive space commuting.

But that's really a, that's really a difficult issue for the pilot group because the side that doesn't commute, which is about half.

Half of us commute, half of us don't.

The side that lives in base or can drive to work, they're like, well, why should I give up anything for the commuter who they say made a choice?

Now, do they make a choice to live where they want?

That's a.

That's a debate you'll hear in crew rooms, you know, many times over.

You know, I don't know.

But, you know, when you.

When you do decide to live in a place that's not in base, you know, then, you know, should the other pilots give up something in negotiations so that you have positive space also, there could be a business impact.

So we saw that at some of the last negotiations, and, you know, the union was pretty split on that because they weren't really, really sure.

The one thing to pay attention to, Justin, before they go into these Section 6 openers, even if they're early openers, the unions are going to survey their membership pretty heavily, and they'll get a pretty good flavor for where everyone's head is at and what they're looking for.

Are they looking for bolstering to the retirement?

I mean, there's not much left on the retirements.

I mean, the IRS has limitations on what can be saved and what can't.

We're now in the mega backdoor ROTH areas because pilots are making so much money, so there's not much left there.

You know, lifetime medical, maybe lifetime medical for the surviving spouse.

I mean, you're gonna start seeing some things that are kind of expensive, that, you know, maybe people go for, but.

But the unions are gonna know because they're gonna.

They're gonna pull pretty extensively and say, okay, what do you guys want?

You know, and.

And so we'll see.

It'll be interesting to see what the.

What.

What they go for.

And my last question, it kind of piggybacks off this, but it seemed like during the last negotiations, you know, once Delta came out with what they had, it seemed to just be a race of we have to be the same, if not a little bit better.

That's not historically always the case, right?

A lot of times, like, well, management's like, let's get on the crappiest deal that they can say yes to, like 50 plus 1.

Let's sign them up for whatever, right?

How long do you think we're going to be in a scenario or in kind of this era where airlines want to have the best pay, they want to have the best quality of life, they want to have the best, whatever it may be, so that they can get more pilots.

Yeah.

So what you're talking about, the union calls pattern bargaining.

That's in our playbook.

As someone that's negotiated pay rates at a regional, I can tell you this is back when.

This is how old I am.

When Comair existed, I was at American Eagle, it's now known as envoy.

When the 145s, the scope buster, got in.

I'm sorry, the 140s, the scope busters got introduced, they were just below the cap that the American pilots would allow.

When those got introduced, we had to negotiate a pay rate.

We absolutely patterned it off of Comair.

At the time we went for Comair plus 1% because it puts management in a difficult situation.

They have to either say, we're unwilling to pay you that even though someone else has, or we don't manage as well as the others.

They somehow still say profitable, but we haven't.

So anyway, so that was actually something that we argued.

The other thing is when a company claims an inability to pay at the negotiating table, they typically then invite the union.

They typically, during the process, have to demonstrate that by opening their books.

And a lot of companies don't like to do that.

And so it's a real complex dance on this pattern bargaining.

But the overall philosophy is exactly that you do try to pattern.

It's an incremental change.

But if Delta gets something, then United is going to try to get that plus a little more.

Then American is going to try to get that plus a little more, and you're going to absolutely see that.

It's called pattern bargaining, and it's absolutely in our playbook.

Yeah.

Do you think that we, for the next foreseeable future, we're going to keep seeing where airlines want to be the ones that pay the most?

I do about pays.

It pays.

A slightly different question where you're.

Compensation.

Sorry.

Yeah, yeah.

So where you're going to.

Where you're going to see it is in like, like, like very nuanced things, like, for instance, profit sharing.

Profit sharing has become a really big deal at a lot of the legacy carriers at Delta.

It can be pretty substantial.

I mean, we're talking, you know, 40, 50, $60,000 checks.

Yeah.

If not more, that line pilots are receiving.

And it's part of the profit sharing thing.

United, for instance, also has profit sharing and it has a very similar formula, but for some reason, a little less money makes it than their Delta counterparts pro rata.

And so the question then becomes where you're going to start maybe seeing some stuff is tweaking that, cleaning up little things.

What did we miss in the last contract?

When my wife flies, she's like, doggone it, I guess they can do this.

I'm surprised.

I'm like, when you do your survey, put that down.

This is something that can be cleaned up.

Pbs, the PBS system, they just did a big upgrade at United, I hear, to do the bidding there.

But it's still, some people say it's still not as good as like, what some of the other airlines have.

So these are all things.

One classic example of pbs.

And I've been after this for years for the airlines.

You know, I don't know what it's like at all airlines, but I know even some of the legacies, when you put your bid in, it can take like a week or 10 days sometimes to get the results.

That doesn't need to happen.

The company just simply has to, you know, that's based on 1980s cluster technology.

In 1990s, they could speed that up.

And so these are going to be some of the improvements, I think, because that's a big quality of life issue.

If you know your schedule for the next month a week earlier than what you used to know it, that means you can plan vacations, you can plan weddings, you can plan, you know, you're going to know things a lot more.

That's a big quality of life improvement.

So.

So those are going to be some of the things I think you're going to start.

Start seeing.

Yeah.

Well, Jim, hey, I appreciate your time.

Thank you so much.

Sorry I went over a little bit on your time limit, but we appreciate you and AV Nation appreciate and looking forward to doing this again.

We should do it again a little bit sooner than what the couple months that it's been.

But I'll see you soon.

Love to be here every time.

Thanks for having me, Justin.

That's a wrap on today's episode.

Thank you so much for listening.

I hope you do enjoy this episode and if you do send it to someone, you know, just be like, hey, dude, listen to this podcast.

It's gonna be worth your time because one, it's informative and two, everyone loves aviation and airplanes.

So maybe we'll make some more pilots.

And that's the whole goal here.

AV Nation.

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