Originally Posted by
eaglefly
Again, 375 would be a little more than 31/month. 225 would be just under 19/month, both as averages. There WILL be outside attrition at Envoy to be sure, but how many is a wildcard. I think at least 10/month would be conservative.
In other words, Envoy will need 30-40 pilots/month to maintain current staffing. Each and every month. It's what I've been saying all along. As for ANYTHING past 2016, that is simply a projection or as you say an "estimate". In fact, AAG makes no guarantees about any specifics beyond 2016 other than assumptive projections. Anyone who comes to Envoy with confidence in upgrading in 2.5 years or flowing to AA in 6 is misguided IMO. To be fair, the same could be said for any regional making any long-term claims of certainty.
Even next year for Envoy, the range of flows by your own admission varies by up to 40% based on up to 150 senior Envoy pilots who may or may not flow.
I don't think there is any viable plan to maintain "current" staffing levels long term. Right now we are WAY overstaffed. Everyone here knows it. We have over 600 pilots on RSV. We have zero time lines, part time lines and very low time line values right now. Lot of People are getting min guarantee to not do much flying. Plus we will require approximately 40 fewer crew due to losing 4 aircraft in 2016. There will be a LOT of training from now, throughout 2016 though with displacements, upgrades, and E175, so a lot of that overstaffing can be absorbed in training bubbles though. It seems they may be keeping the staffing front loaded this way due to the plan of losing so many via flow for the next couple years? Otherwise they would have just furloughed a year ago.
If they can hire 1/4 of what we lose we will still be fine by having fewer reserves, and upping the line values closer to normal again.. for 2016 at least. We could probably get by just fine losing 400 and hiring 100 if that's all we get. Then part way through 2017 we would be closer to optimally staffed and it will get to be a problem beyond that if they still can't hire enough.. As the flow and movement start to pick up though, more people will come, it's already happening. I was just in the schoolhouse for 6 weeks and saw the biggest classes I have seen in years. Things are just barely starting to turn somewhat positive again too, so "if" things do get better in 2016, like they "should", those class sizes will grow beyond what they are now. (currently at 90 new hires year to date) *which 75% of them are from mid summer on, now that things are getting better and the shrinkage has stopped people are starting to show up again..