As has been mentioned before:
In 18 months Envoy will be at the optimum size AA wants. At THAT point it will be 5 years from new hire to flowing up to American Airlines. Numbers based on our flow through and pilot size.
For those who always love to bash the flow, you have to turn the other cheek. AA spent the better part of 15 years not hiring ANYBODY. Eagle/Envoy has only had a flow agreement for a relatively short time. And on that short time AA only recently started hiring and thus allowing flows.
You can take a look at the combined AA/Us Airways retirement numbers for yourself and you will see that hiring will not stop anytime soon at all. That means that pilots from Envoy will continue to flow each month..in November the flow rate goes up to 30/month. Pilots who come to Envoy ahead of the wave will be even better positioned. Everybody is flowing including many of the doomsdayers who in the past claimed the flow was fake. Now they are flying the line at AA in a 767 or Md-80.
Remember also an important part of
Our contract: you don't need to be Captain to flow to AA. An Envoy FO can flow up without ever having upgraded first.
And no, the flow can NOT just disappear for new hires. It is in the contract and any violations come with BIG gains through arbitration. It's how we got our original flow in the first place.