My Aviation Gateway

J Ball:

Hey,

Seniority at Air Canada can depend on many different things, so there isn’t a set time where once you’ve been with them for a few years you get to move onto a larger aircraft. For example, if there’s been a lot of retirements or a fairly significant fleet expansion then it may be easier to bid on a larger aircraft.

The other consideration is that when you’re on an aircraft your schedule is bid by seniority on that particular aircraft. So if you’re the lowest seniority pilot flying a 767, you’ll get last pick of the 767 pairings even if you’ve been with the company for a long time. This means that you’ll get stuck flying all the holidays and be on reserve a lot. Therefore, some pilots will not bid to a larger aircraft until they have a better choice of schedule. For example, even if a pilot can hold the bottom position as a Captain on an A320 after say, 7 years seniority, they will not bid on it until they had maybe 10-12 years seniority.

The last thing to consider is that after 5-10 years seniority, pilots tend to split up with some deciding to go Captain on the Embraer or A320 with others deciding to go First Officer on the widebody fleet. According to Airline Pilot Central http://airlinepilotcentral.com/airlines/canadian/air_canada.html, the lowest seniority A320 Captain has 8 years seniority. But, the lowest seniority Captain on the Embraers has only a couple years seniority – but they’ll be stuck in that seat for a really long time.

So, with all that being said, and an actual Air Canada pilot will have exact figures, I figure for holding a Captain’s spot on a 767 you’re looking at at least 15 years seniority, more likely 20+ish for a good schedule.

Doug Morris, the author of "From The Flight Deck: Plane Talk and Sky Science" http://www.ecwpress.com/books/flight_deck just recently transferred to be a Captain on the A320 from being an F/O on the A340 and he had about 13 years seniority.

This basically means that a new pilot being hired by Air Canada today will likely not ever fly as a Captain on the 767 because Air Canada will likely have retired them by the time that new pilot has enough seniority to hold those positions. But flying as a Captain on a 787 would be just as cool

There’s a thread on AvCanada that talks about the process of bidding http://www.avcanada.ca/forums2/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=41652&st=0&sk=t&sd=a but doesn’t give precise numbers.

Hope this helps and if you need more precise numbers, send me an e-mail and I’ll ask some of my contacts at Air Canada.

Cheers,
James Ball
Author of "So, You Want to be a Pilot, Eh? – A Guidebook for Canadian Pilot Training"
http://www.piloteh.com
http://www.piloteh.blogspot.com