Originally Posted by
Swedish Blender
I've said the same. It's not an attack, merely an observation. I was in the industry in the 90s also. Don't act like you didn't get hired because no on was hiring. They were. You had to have networked just like today.
IIRC, you went to Eagle in the 80s so you should have had all the boxes checked. Since I'm on the far side of the world with nothing to do this morning, I thought I'd look some stuff up. Here are the hiring numbers from 1995-2000 for the big players. AWA/USA/ALA/ATA/AirTran all hired but I didn't include them.
Delta hired - 2813
AA hired - 3200
SWA hired - 1643
United hired - 4714
FedEx hired - 1474
Ups hired - 861
NWA hired - 2302
CAL hired - 972
What this has to do with present Envoy pilots taking their share of the responsibility for their current situation or Cujo attempting to sell rotten meat on thus forum, I don't know. As for your "observations", they are no different then Cujo claiming AA retirements as the engine that is certain to flow all present Envoy pilots to AA in 6 years. It doesn't truly tell the story you imply it does, although emotionally I'm sure it feels satisfying.
As for your numbers above, I have no interest in wasting time validating them. However, I had no desire in flying for a freight carrier, nor spending big $$$ to get a 737 type just fo get my resume in the tall stack over at SWA. During that period, Delta hired its majority from the military and I didn't even try there. Likewise, NWA and Continental held little interest for me as I would have to commute for the rest my career and wasn't interested in that at least for them. By the time UAL called, I had my AA seniority number and made the mistake of assuming I would be at AA shortly........kinda like many Envoy pilots today, at least if you drop to your knees and pray to mason. The only two majors that held interest for me were United and American and had I persued United and if I had been hired, I would have been furloughed. Turned down a US Airways interview offer in '99 before I got my AA number as that seemed like a marginal airline and yes, I would have been furloughed there too had I persued it and succeeded. Life is what it is.
Point being, we all have different priorities and the "old" Eagle was a pretty good place to ride out the Gulf war, and the turbulent '90's living very close to your home town and driving to work for $100K plus a year. You see, back then SOME of us actually believed in making Eagle a career choice as opposed to the upgrade/flow puppy mill most there want to make it now. I find it interesting that some Envoy pilots make me out to be the boogyman due to my comments, yet consider Cujo's misrepresentations unworthy of the slightest criticism. If only present Envoy pilots could first accept their situation could they perhaps solve it or at least mitigate its present descent, but instead they cling to denial, deflection and blame of others.
I'm sorry you wasted so much time pointlessly calculating industry hiring figures from the late '90's. It proved essentially nothing about me or explaining how and why my career path turned out the way it did.