Originally Posted by
PilotJ3
The problem is that if there's stagnation on the AA regionals, people will keep going to other places.
FOs are moving out to better places. Jr CAs are moving to better places. AA is not the only place, the only people that will stay here are the ones waiting for the flow or the one that don't want to apply.
Have you applied to United and Delta? How has that worked out for you so far? You claim Jr CAs are moving to better places....where? Spirit? JetBlue? That may be better than the Regionals...but it's not mainline. And even then, it's difficult to get on with those airlines.
There are 10,000+ pilots applying to the 3 majors left in the United States. Many of those 10,000+ are already working for an LCC, have more PIC time than most Regional pilots have Total Time...and an Airbus type rating to boot.
You think that you and every other wide eyed Regional pilot will some how magically skip ahead of all of them? How? Because you "really, really want the job!"?
We can be cynical about the flow until we turn blue in the face. And that is fine. Flow was never a tool of any kind in the past. The old AA back in the 90s and early 2000s didn't care about flow nor did they want it. They used it as a way to protect their pilots from furlough (letter 3) and it was never intended to actually flow any significant amount of pilots from Eagle.
That was then. This is now. To quote the infamous Scott Kirby: The world has changed. AA still prefers military pilots but they don't have an aversion to Regional pilots the way they did back in the 90s. The new AA (ex-US Airways) understands what a flow can mean for them going forward. And they have gone "all in" so to speak with Envoy and to a lesser extend Piedmont. Only because Piedmont is smaller.
You guys who keep dismissing the flow based on how it worked or didn't work 20 years ago are committing a huge fallacy. The worse thing a professional can do in any industry is be stuck in the past and not adapt to the changing environment around them.
Case and point: Still thinking that the majors will come barrel rolling through your bedroom wall when you hit the magical "1,000 hours of PIC time!".... it doesn't work that way. It never has and even less so today. Living with that in your head will only mean you are at the back of the line as your peers flow up to mainline with no interview.
Take it or leave it. People can listen to trolls like eaglefly who have ulterior motives or they can be smart about what Regional they choose to fly for. Choosing any Regional because of quickie upgrade times is a very bad move. Going to work for Mesa or Republic is a very bad move.