One industry official dubbed it the "no one wants to be a junior captain syndrome." Dennis Tajer, a spokesman for American's pilots union, said the number of pilots declining promotions has at least doubled in the past seven years. At United, bids for 978 captain vacancies, or about 50% of the vacancies posted, have gone unfilled in the past year, United pilot union data shows. A captain's pay is better, but junior pilots, currently, face greater risks of being subjected to unpredictable flying schedules, more on-call duty and assignments on short notice. A failure to substantially improve work rules was a major reason why United pilots overwhelmingly rejected a deal last year.

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Persons: Phil Anderson, Anderson, Robert Mann, Mann, Dennis Tajer, Garth Thompson, Scott Kirby, would've, Greg Sumner, Sumner, Rajesh Kumar Singh, Allison Lampert, Ben Klayman, Matthew Lewis Organizations: United Airlines, United, American Airlines, Airlines, LinkedIn, Delta Air Lines, U.S, Reuters, Indiana, Thomson Locations: Chicago, Montreal