Originally Posted by
Skyvector
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.
Oh, how you salesman like to slice and dice the facts to get the sale.
That's all I've done........be cynical about the present flow, which you supposedly believe is fine, yet demonstrate you don't by your salesmanship and criticism of that skepticism. Just like a true salesman though. The fact is YOUR ulterior motive is to get pilots to Envoy and clearly NOT to other regionals. It's so obvious, it's become grotesque. Yes, the past flow (Letter 3) WAS indeed designed primarily as furlough protection for junior AA pilots and the arbitration history demonstrates that, but the present flow, especially at Envoy is NOT supported by reasonable foundations that are REQUIRED for it to work as advertised (AKA sold)......at least YET. THAT requires a minimum of TWO commitments that must CONTINUE to function correctly for as long as that flow-through is in place. First, AAG has to commit to it by committing to Envoy/Piedmont/PSA etc. as the sole advertised methodology to get to AA and that is NOT the same as the managements of Envoy/Piedmont/PSA advertising X years to upgrade/flow based on projections which can change overnight. Then, the more difficult (actually almost impossible) of the two commitments requires in Envoy's case the hiring of at least 50 pilots/month to supply the fuel to make that engine run or at the very least a sufficient number of pilots to meet whatever flow AAG requires. If that number goes down monthly, the 2.5 upgrade/6 year flow projection almost certainly slows.
Without those two commitments that must demonstrate themselves to be successful, all that's left are projections and promises, both of which have been made in the past repeatedly at Eagle/Envoy and both of which have always not materialized as advertised (sold). It doesn't matter how many times trolls like you parrot the claims and promises made to you as without those commitments, that's all they will remain.......claims and promises. Demanding or expecting other pilots turn off their thinking caps and become certified morons and just blindly following your begging and pleading isn't doing anything for anyone but yourself.
By your own admission, the world changes and what was then isn't now. Your primary error is not applying those inevitable rules to yourself in that the world can easily change once again at any time and what is now, is not guaranteed to be then and that is the point. No one can promise you a rose garden to play in tomorrow and you can't promise that other pilots that either.