envoy reserve times are only so high today because we have had nothing but contraction and stagnation for the last 4 years. We are overstaffed in preparation for the Embraer 175 Training Bubble and due to the fact that AAG planned on us being a much smaller company than we are. Since we have pilots and PSA, Mesa, TSA and RAH cannot hire enough pilots to fulfill their unrealistic air service agreements. envoy is getting a lot of those flight hours back.

The next four years will be a vastly different environment than the last four years have been. envoy is the ONLY company that can guarantee that about 1/3 of their Captains will be leaving next year for a Major Airline. This will be in addition to those who are getting hired via the traditional interview route. NO regional airline can guarantee how many they will hire. Those two variables will greatly impact the amount of time a new hire will spend on reserve and in the right seat. Guys like Bob Loblaw, who do not even work at envoy anymore love to question the flow but there has not been even one month that AA has hired on the AA side of the Us Air merger that they haven't flowed guys over. We are now flowing to both the AA and Us Air operations. We are currently exceeding the 50% required amount of the flow. The flow is THE recruiting tool of choice for AAG, they will not stop the flow. Given the current environment of limited new hire pilots, I think the likelihood of a non wholly owned airline going into bankruptcy is greater than the flow stopping at envoy.

Again, to reiterate, the only airline that can guarantee that 300 of its Captains will be leaving next year is envoy and that is half of the factor in determining how long a new hire will sit on reserve. In fact the last time that envoy hired as many pilots as they are projecting for next year, the reserve time was only a few months. No one can say whether or not they will meet those projections, only time will tell.

You will not find many regional airlines with a long call reserve. A 2 hour call out is pretty standard. We do have a pretty well regimented call out process and it is very easy to track your current "probability" of getting called and plan your commute accordingly. Occasionally guys have been burned for doing this but about 95% of the time you are successful and you won't get in trouble for the other 5%. We currently do not have Preferential Bidding for line holders and we have a proffering system for the reserve pilots which both mean a greatly improved QOL and paycheck. Something that many of the other regionals do not offer. My friends over at RAH consistently lose 5 - 10 hours of pay a month due to their lack of cancellation pay.

I had a similar situation with my family travel benefits. Foremost, if travel benefits are important to you. NO regional has better travel benefits than envoy, PDT or PSA. I was once told that I can have one "FATHER" and one "MOTHER" on my travel benefits and they really don't care if they are biological or not. Just that once that person is chosen, its there for life. I would think that in the current LGBT Politically Current Culture, no one would question the "fact" that you have two mothers.