Originally Posted by
SpreadEagle
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What's the word on getting more of our old flying back? October was allegedly the month in which AAG assigned flying to all the regional subcontractors. I know we were in the doghouse for biting our master's hand so many times...but what does our slice of the pie look like? Will schedules continue to suck with the majority of pilots on reserve? Will the majority of line holding pilots still be flying 11 day off lines? Will our QOL ever improve? I mean it's great that we got the company to pay for hotels a few times a month but...really who likes burning 4 days off out of every month for a commute? I mean this is brutal for ex-LGA, MIA, and hell...even LAX commuters. The good news train seems to have de-railed a month or so ago...and we seem to be in a rumor drought... Everybody else is flowing faster than us so that is morale crushing with the amount of trickle flows AAG has been taking from us... I keep hearing about this 50% of every class...blah,blah,blah...but they don't have to make it true until the end of the year. New hires still aren't coming here fast enough and even if they are...the quality of the candidates right now is iffy as they are having issues getting new hires through without a few extra sessions from what I hear...which in turn backs up the training bubble for CAs trying to upgrade... Where is the good news?
The first half of your post are good questions. We've asked the officers to get those answers.
The second half of your post is wrong.
The flow is not a trickle. We sent more flows to AA than any other. Their chart shows the hiring and it says we got 62% for the year.
We told them since 2013 that all these TA's they tried to force on us - including the one in December 14 - would not solve the looming staffing shortage. We were right.... again.
It's theirs to fix. I agree, abiding by the CBA should be their first step, even if it hurts a little.
Envoy, even with its faults is still better than most regionals. we hear it from the departed eaglets. Many of the non owned places really are shoestring operations. The difference is noticeable if you've been someplace structured before. They all say the same thing. They prefer Envoy but couldn't wait to upgrade. Well, if their flow works as designed - and so far it has - the upgrades times will come way down.
There only around 1,000 captains. 300 won't flow. That leaves 700 that will leave one way or another. We are projected to flow 350 next year alone. That's over 1/3 of our active captains in 1 year. This place is about to turn into an upgrade factory.
We have a fully staffed schoolhouse, we have the sims, we have excess pilots to absorb the training bubble.