2026 PIT FLEET AC

[Yowdriver]

Good day.

Would like to know if anyone has some sort of information of the Aircrafts as well as the bases offered in both of January classes

Regards.

[JungleRiot]

You wont know what metal youll fly until end of week 2 of GS. 2-3 year upgrades are gone. Youre looking 11-13 years at the current moment.

[streamlineflow]

You wont know what metal youll fly until end of week 2 of GS. 2-3 year upgrades are gone. Youre looking 11-13 years at the current moment.

11-13 years... ?? That's insane.
Are you serious ?
Where did you get that from ?

[rudder]

You wont know what metal youll fly until end of week 2 of GS. 2-3 year upgrades are gone. Youre looking 11-13 years at the current moment.

11-13 years can hold 767 CA or very bottom of 330 CA.

Some previous 2-3 year NB CA upgrades are being reversed due to bumping from Rouge reductions (LCC319).

The new CBA is driving seniority 3+ year bidding to WB FO or NB CA. Typical junior NB upgrade probably going to move out closer to year 4 or 5.

[The Hammer]

AC's growth plans are being hampered by aircraft delivery delays and market changes. 321 NEO's are late and turning into fleet renewals vs growth. AC just added 4 ex-Virgin America (Alaskan) 320's to replace a tired fleet. The 319's aren't young anymore and even the early 321's are starting to show their age.

[Sharklasers]

You wont know what metal youll fly until end of week 2 of GS. 2-3 year upgrades are gone. Youre looking 11-13 years at the current moment.

11-13 years... ?? That's insane.
Are you serious ?
Where did you get that from ?

It’s not accurate but Its from assuming no growth and ~125 mandatory retirements a year for the next 12 years. So you look at the seniority of the junior pilot in a position and calculate how long it will take you to reach that seniority with 125 retirements per year.
About 5810 pilots on property today so if your hired as 5811 it will take a bit.

Junior Captains per base:
YUL 4176 = 13.4 years
YYZ 4751 = 8.5 years
YWG 2750 = 24 years
YVR 3864 = 15.5 years

Obviously any growth will shorten these numbers and I believe the retirements will accelerate again after 12 years.

[CaptDukeNukem]

You wont know what metal youll fly until end of week 2 of GS. 2-3 year upgrades are gone. Youre looking 11-13 years at the current moment.

11-13 years... ?? That's insane.
Are you serious ?
Where did you get that from ?

It’s not accurate but Its from assuming no growth and ~125 mandatory retirements a year for the next 12 years. So you look at the seniority of the junior pilot in a position and calculate how long it will take you to reach that seniority with 125 retirements per year.
About 5810 pilots on property today so if your hired as 5811 it will take a bit.

Junior Captains per base:
YUL 4176 = 13.4 years
YYZ 4751 = 8.5 years
YWG 2750 = 24 years
YVR 3864 = 15.5 years

Obviously any growth will shorten these numbers and I believe the retirements will accelerate again after 12 years.

Knowing friends that are captains at less than years you’re stating makes me believe your calculations are slightly in need of a computer or a whiz wheel.

You can’t base upgrades solely on retirements.

[Sharklasers]

11-13 years... ?? That's insane.
Are you serious ?
Where did you get that from ?

It’s not accurate but Its from assuming no growth and ~125 mandatory retirements a year for the next 12 years. So you look at the seniority of the junior pilot in a position and calculate how long it will take you to reach that seniority with 125 retirements per year.
About 5810 pilots on property today so if your hired as 5811 it will take a bit.

Junior Captains per base:
YUL 4176 = 13.4 years
YYZ 4751 = 8.5 years
YWG 2750 = 24 years
YVR 3864 = 15.5 years

Obviously any growth will shorten these numbers and I believe the retirements will accelerate again after 12 years.

Knowing friends that are captains at less than years you’re stating makes me believe your calculations are slightly in need of a computer.

You can’t base upgrades solely on retirements.

I am not stating it’s accurate. I include that growth will shorten these numbers timeline. I’m simply demonstrating how these numbers were derived. Also it doesn’t matter to seniority number 5811 how long it took your friends to upgrade if they were hired at seniority number 3500, 4000, 4500, 5000 ect. This is purely a going forward look at mandatory retirements vs pilots on property between you and the seat you want. There is a little over 1000 pilots between someone hired tomorrow and the dead last captain in the company, IF there is no growth and the only factor that moves you closer to the left seat is retirements it will take a bit. Suffice to say unless we hit another massive wave of growth and hiring it will take longer in the future to get to the left seat than those of us who were hired when the airline was much smaller.

[rudder]

It’s not accurate but Its from assuming no growth and ~125 mandatory retirements a year for the next 12 years. So you look at the seniority of the junior pilot in a position and calculate how long it will take you to reach that seniority with 125 retirements per year.
About 5810 pilots on property today so if your hired as 5811 it will take a bit.

Junior Captains per base:
YUL 4176 = 13.4 years
YYZ 4751 = 8.5 years
YWG 2750 = 24 years
YVR 3864 = 15.5 years

Obviously any growth will shorten these numbers and I believe the retirements will accelerate again after 12 years.

Knowing friends that are captains at less than years you’re stating makes me believe your calculations are slightly in need of a computer.

You can’t base upgrades solely on retirements.

I am not stating it’s accurate. I include that growth will shorten these numbers timeline. I’m simply demonstrating how these numbers were derived. Also it doesn’t matter to seniority number 5811 how long it took your friends to upgrade if they were hired at seniority number 3500, 4000, 4500, 5000 ect. This is purely a going forward look at mandatory retirements vs pilots on property between you and the seat you want. There is a little over 1000 pilots between someone hired tomorrow and the dead last captain in the company, IF there is no growth and the only factor that moves you closer to the left seat is retirements it will take a bit. Suffice to say unless we hit another massive wave of growth and hiring it will take longer in the future to get to the left seat than those of us who were hired when the airline was much smaller.

The reality is that the junior CA holds that position because many pilots more senior did not want it. Possibly due to base. Possibly due to equipment. Possibly due to schedule/vacation.

AC has a system where at a certain seniority and tenure a pilot can choose $250k in the right seat of a WB or $320k in the left seat of a NB. After tax, that extra $70k on the T4 (closer to $33k after tax and deductions) won’t make much difference in day-to-day life but the improvement to schedule may have significant benefits in QOL. It is evident from the bid award results that this preference manifests itself for many AC pilots.

I cannot recall if it was prior to or after COVID, but at one point DL actually awarded an NYC NB CA position to a new-hire. That meant 15000+ pilots more senior did not want that position.

Due to the still deficient 1-4 year FO/RP pay rates, there will likely be continued demand for junior pilots to bid NB CA strictly for economic reasons. But you will either need to reside on base or get a crash pad because it will be RSV for a long time and pilots will parachute in ahead of you as their seniority allows them to hold a desirable relative seniority on the respective CA roster. This reality keeps many pilots in the right seat (either NB or WB).

There was a time at AC when it was 17 years to junior NB CA (1979 DOH). Those same pilots retired as 777 CA. Recent history has pilots holding NB CA with as little as 12-18 months of service. Will that repeat itself? Without a dramatic growth wave, probably not. But things won’t revert to 11-13 years to the left seat which is pretty well where WJ finds itself with a (mostly) single fleet type.

It has always been the case that the gap between DOB and DOH will be the best determinant of career earnings potential at AC. The lesser the gap the less of an issue it is to upgrade at the earliest available opportunity. So the demographic most likely to be pursuing the earliest upgrade opportunity is the older new-hire pilot desiring to increase total earnings and maximize pension benefit accrual with less years remaining in their career to do so. That pilot hired today likely will not see that opportunity in less than 5-7 years. And as has been pointed out, that range may increase over time absent growth as the only reasonably predictable metric is retirement attrition recognizing that the demographic of new-hire age since 2015 is significantly varied due to flow from PML 1.0 and targeted hiring of more experienced pilots (therefore generally older than the typical new-hire pilot).

Definitive annual retirement numbers based on a mandatory age 65 decay would certainly increase the accuracy of the tenure projection for junior NB CA.

[PittBoss]

What about DEC ? Can't they hire those?

[flying4dollars]

What about DEC ? Can't they hire those?

no

[Ironman2909]

Assumption on retirement only is flawed.

From my point of view, I would say 5-7 years to have a left seat open is realistic. The assumption on growth being hampered by lacking airplanes is true. As of now, latest quarterly report from the corp shows a gain in 2026 of 2 x 787-10 (to be seen), 5 x 737MAX's, 11 x 321XLR's and 18 x 220's......total of 36 aiprlaines..... so calculation based solely on retirement are incorrect.

I'm waiting to see the end of 2025 report and the Investors Day report to see what the corp is planning for the near future. Everything is available on the corp website under the Investors relation at the bottom.

Do mind, the Big Yellow-Orange ?$$?$%&&%ed clown down south as directly and proportionally an influence on everything that will happened in the near future.....and that's the biggest variable in anyone prognostic for what's to come......

[rudder]

Assumption on retirement only is flawed.

From my point of view, I would say 5-7 years to have a left seat open is realistic. The assumption on growth being hampered by lacking airplanes is true. As of now, latest quarterly report from the corp shows a gain in 2026 of 2 x 787-10 (to be seen), 5 x 737MAX's, 11 x 321XLR's and 18 x 220's......total of 36 aiprlaines..... so calculation based solely on retirement are incorrect.

I'm waiting to see the end of 2025 report and the Investors Day report to see what the corp is planning for the near future. Everything is available on the corp website under the Investors relation at the bottom.

Do mind, the Big Yellow-Orange ?$$?$%&&%ed clown down south as directly and proportionally an influence on everything that will happened in the near future.....and that's the biggest variable in anyone prognostic for what's to come......

Don’t forget -1 LCC321/-3 LCC319 and -2 ML320/-5 ML319 for Q4 2025 plus -15 LCC319 and -2 ML320 for 2026. Fleet change is +12 from Sept 30 2025 until Dec 31 2026. Also don’t forget that there is a lot of low DMM across schedules reflecting less than maximized fleet utilization. Flexing up the DMM results in fewer (if any) vacancies.

All of this is already factored in to bid 25-05 (looking out 12 months and inclusive of summer 2026), no? One could presume to start to see the ‘growth’ based impact on staffing (increased fleet AND increased utilization) in bids conducted late summer or fall of 2026 looking out to 2027 and peak flying levels summer 2027.

[Sinner]

The -1LCC321 was transfered from LCC to ML. FIN 468. It's being reconfigured in MLB right now.

[Canadianpilot2024]

regarding the pension calculator to determine upgrade times:

“ Career Progression: The career planner uses your seniority number, date of birth, date of hire, planned retirements, and published fleet plan to project the positions available to you at any point in your future career. Fleet plans can change, and so will the positions available to you. The career builder is only as accurate as the fleet plan projections provided by the Company in their annual reports. Case Lab and ALPA bear no responsibility or liability for the accuracy of these projections.”

Wouldn’t the published fleet plan include future confirmed orders?

Also heard that the 787 is overstaffed and has been for quite some time due to the pending deliveries.

Should see another big plane order in about 7-10 years, I would assume

[PittBoss]

What about DEC ? Can't they hire those?

no

Why not?

I have ATPL

I WANT TO APPLY

[jpilot77]

regarding the pension calculator to determine upgrade times:

“ Career Progression: The career planner uses your seniority number, date of birth, date of hire, planned retirements, and published fleet plan to project the positions available to you at any point in your future career. Fleet plans can change, and so will the positions available to you. The career builder is only as accurate as the fleet plan projections provided by the Company in their annual reports. Case Lab and ALPA bear no responsibility or liability for the accuracy of these projections.”

Wouldn’t the published fleet plan include future confirmed orders?

Also heard that the 787 is overstaffed and has been for quite some time due to the pending deliveries.

Should see another big plane order in about 7-10 years, I would assume

There will be another plane order soon to replace the 777s, could be bigger than the current fleet or just a straight replacement.

[cdnavater]

What about DEC ? Can't they hire those?

no

Why not?

I have ATPL

I WANT TO APPLY

It’s simple, in order to hire DEC, there would need to be unbid vacancies for the left seat, not likely to happen anytime soon.

[Man_in_the_sky]

no

Why not?

I have ATPL

I WANT TO APPLY

It’s simple, in order to hire DEC, there would need to be unbid vacancies for the left seat, not likely to happen anytime soon.

You're too polite there, it will NEVER happen. everyone that is hired already has the minimum requirement to upgrade on day 1.

[jpilot77]

Although it did happen in the past when AC was flying the CRJs. But if you failed your command course you were terminated.

[flying4dollars]

What about DEC ? Can't they hire those?

no

Why not?

I have ATPL

I WANT TO APPLY

Well you didn't tell me that, duh of course you can be a DEC!!

[Protonpilot]

regarding the pension calculator to determine upgrade times:

“ Career Progression: The career planner uses your seniority number, date of birth, date of hire, planned retirements, and published fleet plan to project the positions available to you at any point in your future career. Fleet plans can change, and so will the positions available to you. The career builder is only as accurate as the fleet plan projections provided by the Company in their annual reports. Case Lab and ALPA bear no responsibility or liability for the accuracy of these projections.”

Wouldn’t the published fleet plan include future confirmed orders?

Also heard that the 787 is overstaffed and has been for quite some time due to the pending deliveries.

Should see another big plane order in about 7-10 years, I would assume

Some of this was answered in a pension newsletter way back.

The ALPA pension estimator uses the latest CMSC list as the main driver for its career progression. For example, if the seniority estimator shows you at seniority number 4079 in the year 2030, and that's the bottom slot YYZ-320-CA, then that will be the first year that you'll see that position available to you in the career planner.

The latest fleet plan from the company annual report is shown in one of the tabs of the online tool. It only shows deliveries one year ahead, even though there are lots of deliveries scheduled several years beyond that. So in that sense the published fleet plan matches the time horizon of the CMSC bid.

All that to say, I've been told by a member of that committee that the career projections probably err on the conservative side. This makes sense to me. We're being told by Flt Ops that a good part of the 70 plus deliveries in the next few years are growth, and most of these aren't accounted for in the ALPA tool.

[350driver]

regarding the pension calculator to determine upgrade times:

“ Career Progression: The career planner uses your seniority number, date of birth, date of hire, planned retirements, and published fleet plan to project the positions available to you at any point in your future career. Fleet plans can change, and so will the positions available to you. The career builder is only as accurate as the fleet plan projections provided by the Company in their annual reports. Case Lab and ALPA bear no responsibility or liability for the accuracy of these projections.”

Wouldn’t the published fleet plan include future confirmed orders?

Also heard that the 787 is overstaffed and has been for quite some time due to the pending deliveries.

Should see another big plane order in about 7-10 years, I would assume

Some of this was answered in a pension newsletter way back.

The ALPA pension estimator uses the latest CMSC list as the main driver for its career progression. For example, if the seniority estimator shows you at seniority number 4079 in the year 2030, and that's the bottom slot YYZ-320-CA, then that will be the first year that you'll see that position available to you in the career planner.

The latest fleet plan from the company annual report is shown in one of the tabs of the online tool. It only shows deliveries one year ahead, even though there are lots of deliveries scheduled several years beyond that. So in that sense the published fleet plan matches the time horizon of the CMSC bid.

All that to say, I've been told by a member of that committee that the career projections probably err on the conservative side. This makes sense to me. We're being told by Flt Ops that a good part of the 70 plus deliveries in the next few years are growth, and most of these aren't accounted for in the ALPA tool.

Here's some numbers to extrapolate for your own purposes.

By 2030 720 retirements will have taken place (720 from 2026 numbers)
By 2035 1375 retirements will have taken place (655 from 2030 numbers)
By 2040 2024 retirements will have taken place (649 from 2035 numbers)

Current number of people on property ~5710

Most Junior A220 Captain is 4625 today in YYZ.

By my napkin math, 5711-4625 = 1086 movements for junior command. Marks 2032 for a new hire today to get their junior A220 command. So about 6 years.

This assumes fleet plan is static, airline doesn't shrink, and we don't make good on our new frontiers plan of generating 30B in revenue by 2030.

John Di Bert, our CFO did say that our net gain of aircraft in 2026 is about +12 on the last earnings call. He also said the 18 319's from rouge will be retired. But I just saw news that we acquired another 5 220's.

I'd expect ALL of the numbers above to change by 2027-2028 and the more likely outcome is that a 4625 command likely will move up to about 5000-5100. making commands a constant 3-4 years for the next foreseeable future.

Unless we go into WW3 and USA takes us over, then I guess we are all flying for United, Delta, or American soon anyway so who cares.

Another interesting CHATGPT napkin math. Canada has about 10% of baby boomers left to retire by 2031. If we assume 10% of 5710 = 571 of the retirements between now and 2031 are likely baby boomers. But don't forget how many PML 1.0 and 45-55 year olds AC hired from the likes of Emirates, Qatar, Cathay, Sky Regional, Jazz, WestJet, Sunwing, who all came over for a 6 month - 1 year wait time for Command. I'd wager a large percentage of these guys will fly to 60-65 but they're all coming up on retirement starting pretty soon. PML 1.0 was 2015. And the slew of those expats/wj&swg guys were hired 2016-2018. Hard to believe, but the first wave of these older guys are already beginning their retirement as early as last year.

So I am inclined to believe that an average of 700 per 5 years is a realistic retirement wave for the next 15 years or so meaning whoever joins today is at least moving up 2100 numbers in the next 15 years. 2100 numbers from 5710 = 3610.

3610 today has the choice of command across all narrow bodies, across all bases, and with exception to YVR, all wide body FO positions, and are all in the top 10% of narrow body FO positions. Now if we actually get to 310+ airplanes to generate that 30B new frontiers plan, 3610 is today, what 4700-4900 will be in 5-6 years, so still looking like people are in good shape who are in at the 5700-6000's this year. Especially if there's only 290 new hires this year, that means whoever joins this year likely will have a fantastic career in front of them still.

Keep in mind between 7 years in and 19 years in, if you lose your medical, you're pretty well covered for the majority of your post-tax income for 15 additional years. It can't be discounted and something to seriously keep in mind. That's a 22 (7+15) total year career paid for (likely at a narrow body CA or wide body FO pay rate) if you get sick. Does anywhere else offer that right now? Sure EK gives you a loss of license. But then what? Does it equate 15 years at your 300k/yr (post tax 150k) income? Doubt their loss of license is 2.3M CAD. I think it's like 1xbasic salary. Double check me on that if you want.

Now place those numbers and prediction against your age. How do you feel being in the above position in the next 5, 10, and 15 years from now?

21-32 = no brainer, come on over.
32-45 = some career sacrifices will be needed for money, or lifestyle, you won't be able to maximize both
45+ = you're likely constantly chasing money at the expense of lifestyle, or less money in order to be off more. You won't have the luxury of having both throughout your career as the guys coming in earlier did.

[Me262]

Keep in mind between 7 years in and 19 years in, if you lose your medical, you're pretty well covered for the majority of your post-tax income for 15 additional years. It can't be discounted and something to seriously keep in mind. That's a 22 (7+15) total year career paid for (likely at a narrow body CA or wide body FO pay rate) if you get sick. Does anywhere else offer that right now? Sure EK gives you a loss of license. But then what? Does it equate 15 years at your 300k/yr (post tax 150k) income? Doubt their loss of license is 2.3M CAD. I think it's like 1xbasic salary. Double check me on that if you want.

Jazz. Jazz has a better coverage if you lose your medical from day 1 until AC catches up from year 7+. At Jazz's salary of course.

[altiplano]

Here's some numbers to extrapolate for your own purposes.

By 2030 720 retirements will have taken place (720 from 2026 numbers)
By 2035 1375 retirements will have taken place (655 from 2030 numbers)
By 2040 2024 retirements will have taken place (649 from 2035 numbers)

I think you're overestimating your 2030 numbers. More like 500 by the end of 2030 assuming everyone goes to 65.

Your other estimations are close I think though, again assuming everyone goes to 65. If people go early that will shift numbers forward obviously.