Originally Posted by
Skyvector
Poor PSA.
American Airlines CEO Doug Parker is doing Town Hall meetings around the various bases. His latest trip was to Charlotte where he answered questions from PSA and Piedmont pilots. The video of the entire meeting was posted to our (AA) internal website for our viewing pleasure. After a couple of views (and many laughs) I'll provide the highlights.
Turns out, there are leaks in the PSA canoe already...and anybody could have seen it coming.
To kick things off, a PSA Captain who is also a recruiter stood up. According to her, she is having a hard time "selling" PSA to potential recruits. First and foremost it's becuase PSA: "Doesn't have a flow as good as Envoy's".
Currently, a pilot entering PSA has a 20 year (TWENTY YEAR) wait before interviewing with AA. Remember PSA doesn't have a flow. She mentioned how current First Officers, IF THEY ARE LUCKY have a TEN year wait before interviewing with AA.
Then she brings up how this is affecting morale and begs Doug Parker for changes.
Doug Parker's answer: "I don't know". He then asks for help from Jim Thomas, who tells her point blank:
"There are only so many spots. There are our off the street hires and ENVOY FLOW THROUGHS so there are only so many we can take from PSA."
Doug then says, "but hey, thanks for what you are doing." LOL...he brushed her off really quick.
Contrast that with the State of the Airlkne meeting Doug Parker already did in Dallas 2 weeks ago in which he answered questions about Envoy. For those who missed it, I'll provide a summary of that as well.
Sam Pool, Envoy MEC Chairman stood up and asked:
"We voted confidence in you guys (AA) in December. I don't want to see our guys leave for JetBlue, Delta, United...what can we do to get our guys to stay?"
Robert Isom (COO of AA) stood up to answer first. He said:
"Really good news is coming Envoy's way. We made a HUGE investment in bringing new aircraft to Envoy. We have the largest and BEST RJs coming your way."
He then continued:
"We have to make sure we are optimally sized. When we get to that point we are going to see the best thing that can possibly happen for pilots...which is being able to move QUICKLY from the Right seat to the Left and then FLOW in to American Airlines."
He then reiterated how once that optimum size is reached pilots coming into Envoy will upgrade and flow to AA in a very quick time frame. That optimum number is around 1500 pilots. Given our flow to AA that means a 5 year time frame from being a new hire at Envoy to flowing to American Airlines.
In other words, PSA pilots are already seeing cracks in their system and longing for what Envoy has. PSA is reaching their target size and therefore settling into stagnation with their only "silver lining" being 4 interviews at AA per month.
Meanwhile, Envoy is reaching their optimum size over the next 18 months with new aircraft arriving during that time period. Envoy has a true NO INTERVIEW flow to American Airlines at a rate of 25 pilots per month MINIMUM. Once the optimum size is reached, a new hire pilot coming into Envoy will be looking at flowing to AA in 5 years with an upgrade to Captain in between.
All current pilots at Envoy and those who arrive before the next 18 months will be ahead of that wave and already at AA or at the least already a Captain.
Can't say I feel sorry for PSA.
I have a friend who worked in the training dept over there until recently.
He basically said the same thing.
The Schedules over there are horrific, on the line and twice as worse in the training dept.Most of the people are tired of the 6 day a week schedule and with the commute time he was only averaging one day off a week.Besides that he said they are scrapping the bottom of the barrel with the new hires, alot of restricted Atp guys who require ALOT of extra work and training and its just exhausting he said.
Also I tried commuting a couple of weeks ago on a Psa flight out of clt.The flight was 3hrs late because they didn't have any crews to operate it.They also cancelled another flight across the concourse due to lack of crews.I think they may have bitten off more than they can chew with all of these aircraft .I think it they will be hard pressed to keep them staffed , with all the attrition I hear is happening there. 47 more crj 700 s and 24 more 900s is going to be tough to keep staffed in today's environment. Maybe a sign on bonus would help ? I don't know .That dangling carrot for the quick upgrade is fading fast.
It is kind of weird that the other two AA wholly owned regionals have a flow through but psa only has an interview. That's interesting.
I'm grabbing my popcorn.