Originally Posted by
Pullout
Ok, this is my two cents.
Most myopic? Really? Before you label it most myopic, hear me out.
A few people are moving on. But where they are moving onto most is what is troubling. Very few, are onto the legacies. And most of those are either minority and/or women. The others are off to LCCs like Spirit, Allegiant etc. Not exactly every pilot's dream job but definitely better than Mesa. I know we have some wonder FO's on here that think they're special because they're mom's raised them to think that way, but there are hundreds of pilots with better credentials that what they assume and are still waiting for that interview call. And 5-10 must also factor in retirement, medical, FMLA etc. It's a fraction of 1% best case scenario.
Looking at history is always a good practice when trying to decipher what the future may bring. Those LCC's you speak of are still career airlines flying their own code, and not a bad place to hang your hat. If anything, you get an Airbus type rating which sets you aside from the thousands of RJ folks in the big 3 pool.
Looking to the future, the trend for 100+ new-hire pilots PER major is going to continue for 10+ years. The pilot factories don't have the backfill capabilities for the regionals. We still have the luxury to cherry-pick what we want, but that won't last more than another couple of years.
Originally Posted by
Pullout
You assume I'm saying we aren't being hired because we are a bad pilot group. Quite the opposite. Think outside the box. Mesa is one of United's top performing and lowest cost regionals. That is the simple reason they are awarding us with all this new flying; American too. It's simple business. Now if they start taking from one of their most reliable/cheapest, then we start having results like Republic is having now. It would be like United eating it's own foot. The good foot, not the limping one. Now why would it want to cannibalize it's good foot?
First off, UAL is very HR driven and will do anything to avoid a lawsuit. Even the hint of impropriety, such as excluding one regional based on their UAX performance, is unfathomable. Mesa is unique because of its recent bankruptcy, and their is a huge divide in experience. The top of the Mesa list is made up of folks that may not be itching to leave, or are trying to get out but simply have a skeleton in the closet. Then you have the folks with lots of SIC time, but low on the TPIC time with no other special qualities that "ping" in the airline apps matrix (not a dig on any of you, btw). Then you have the folks that have been hired in the last 2 years getting experience and upgrading. I don't know the background of every individual at Mesa, but I would venture to guess it's about 90% the same as those at other regionals.
Now, to your UAX theory, let's flip that. Wouldn't UAL want to deplete AA's regionals, Mesa being one of them?
Originally Posted by
Pullout
Of course they're not going to stop hiring from SkyWest. Are those few bad apples bad for United business/finance or are they a pain in the ass for United pilots? VP's care about one of those factors, not so much the other.
UA is culture driven, and accountants don't do the hiring. And as I alluded to earlier, we're a little lawsuit shy, so we'll continue to evaluate candidates based on app scores rather than pedigree. Also, looks like more Ejets, some of which look to be going to Skywest:
This:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/united-ai ... 00768.html
And this:
http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSK ... 5?irpc=932