August '10 Bid's Nuts and Bolts

July 10th began the bidding for what will be the one of the busiest month of the year for COS and the rest of the OO system. I am just now taking a look at the flying for COS this Sunday morning and I must say that I am a bit shocked. We're down to three reserves for August. That's the lowest we've ever had in COS (to my knowledge). Funny enough, we have just a couple dozen less pairings but with three of our flight attendants out for the month and with five part-timers we will be stretched rather thin and only have three reserves for August, if that many.

August should prove to be the busiest month for the year with the possible exception of December. September on the other hand will be a record decline in traffic. That's just the way the seasonal forecast is. Our industry has become completely dependent on the travel forecast. Spring and Fall tend to be the slower months for air travel where Summer and Winter tend to be the busiest. Of course it wasn't always that way and it has evolved to depend on this system since the market decline of 2008-2009.

For COS, September should be a month where we have lots of reserves. As my Father relies on the season needs of the agriculture industry in Arkansas he would be the first to say, "take it while you can get it!" I suppose we should all take the good with the bad. Whether you're like me and needing the extra flying or if you despise the heavy burden, just wait a month... it will change.

So for August we have, 51 Guaranteed, 55 Targeted, and all of three reserves. We remain a D package average with exactly the same amount of pairings that we had in December, 474.

In August we have 474 total pairings. That includes FA and FF.

188 are on the CRJ 200.
286 are on the CRJ 700.

Trip lengths for August include,

250 Locals
112 Two-day trips
45 Three-day trips
112 Four-day trips

Compared to,


In July we had 488 total pairings.
186 of those are on the CRJ 200.
302 of those are on the CRJ 700.

Trip lengths for July include
264 Locals
123 Two-day trips
20 Three-day trips
81 Four-day trips