Skyvector

This website is for information. Good information hopefully but most of it gets lost in the muck. It's important that pilots considering their next/first airline job know all the facts and have considered all angles of a story.

This thread isn't meant to bash PSA....although we could go down that road and there is plenty of negatives to list off. No, this thread is meant to educate potential applicants of a VERY IMPORTANT thing they are probably unaware of.

The main reason I see people going to PSA is the so called "quick upgrade". No mention is made to the shell game PSA is currently playing with their "quick upgrade". Here is how it shakes out:

The FAA requires anybody upgrading to Captain to have 1,000 hours of part 121 flying time. PSA's growth in the past year-while relatively small-was too quick for their upgrades to keep up with. Most of their FOs don't have 1,000 hours of 121 time making them unable to upgrade even though their seniority allows them to.

That means that more junior pilots who do have the 121 time jump ahead of the more senior pilots in line and upgrade. This is the root cause of the artificially low upgrade times at PSA currently....which is fine. No problem in and of itself.

However, here is where the wheels begin flying off this wagon: Vacancy/Displacement bids. If you are new to the airline world, or haven't been around for very long you probably have NO idea what this is or how it works. So here we go:

Airlines periodically put out what is known as a Displacement Bid for any number of reasons. What that means is that pilots are able to bid for any seat/equipment/base that their seniority can hold even if it DISPLACES a junior pilot out of that seat/equipment/base.

At PSA you have a number of FOs not upgrading because they lack 121 time. Pilots junior to them who have that time upgrade. 1 or 2 years later all those pilots who didn't have the time to upgrade now have 1,000 hours of 121 time. PSA then puts out a Vacancy/Displacement bid.

You can probably see how this goes: All those Captains who upgraded are now displaced back to FO. You have probably heard that PSA has already hired all their Captains about 8 months ago. You probably didn't understand what that meant exactly. Well, there you go. All those "junior" Captains at PSA currently are one displacement bid from going back to the right seat. PSA is about finished growing. In fact, they currently can't even handle anymore growth as their now infamous letter to ALPA proves.

What that spells out for the vast majority of PSA pilots is stagnation. If you are chasing that magic quick upgrade you need to know these facts before running to PSA. You are setting yourself up for tremendous amounts of grief and frustration. Remember also that at PSA currently it will take 20 years before you get the opportunity to interview at AA. The PSA apologists on this website are very new to the airline world and more than likely unaware of how this airline game works. They probably have no idea of displacement bids, what they are, or how they will affect them.

Many current Captains at PSA are on borrowed time. There are FOs senior to them who will upgrade as soon as the next displacement bid comes out sending many of those current Captains back to the Right Seat. That means that anybody going to PSA CURRENTLY will have a better chance of setting fire to an ice cube than ever upgrading at PSA. That is how the Regional game is played...it's very cyclical and PSA is on the downward swing.

Take it for what it's worth but this information needs to be out there for all of you potential new airline pilots to consider.