Originally Posted by
BobJenkins
Dude, I mean, for real, dude... I defer to your experience, as I have none in the 121 world. I understand past does not equal future. I also understand that there will be less regionals in 12-24 months than there are today.
Look at the flow at Envoy? Feel free to explain that one. 30 pilots per month to AA. 360 per year. Best case. Meanwhile, sitting on reserve at ENY and flying 30 hours per month nets one 360 hours per year. Or even 500, if you wish to be generous. I am pretty sure NO ONE at Mesa flies that little even today.
It seems you think all CAs will stay at Mesa, based on your projections. While that MIGHT happen, I have my doubts. I have a feeling Mesa will continue to have a pretty large amount of attrition. But that's just my outside view looking in, and what I have read about the CEO's approach to hiring and pay.
You are forgetting that at Envoy the top half of Captains are lifers and do not want to flow. They also recently got a new flow agreement changing the dynamics. When I did the math a few weeks ago, every captain that wants to flow into American will be able to within the next two years. That means half the FO's on the list will be able to upgrade. This is flow only. If you factor in the regrowth of envoy with the 175's over the next several years it means you will upgrade in about 3.5-4 years and flow to American in about 6-7 if hired today.
At Mesa, upgrade time alone if hired now is 5 years plus with my math and then good luck getting out of here with no flow. Currently as the standing bid awards are ran, and for all of 2016, they will continue to look like you will have a quick upgrade, but it won't be 6 months, 9 months, or a year. It is slowly taking longer and longer as guys get their time to upgrade. As a new FO hired today, you will move up the list in 2016 by maybe 100 or more due to the upgrades and some attrition, but once the last E175 is delivered, you will have 400-450 FO's senior to you still and probably no further deliveries. Suddenly you will realize with no growth and no attrition your upgrade just skyrocketed a lot of years up to 5 plus because now you only move up due to attrition. Again no flow to help. We have about 300 lifers so when you do get the other 250-300 to slowly leave, you will get to replace them. At Envoy you have about 700 who want to leave. Higher percentage of attrition. Does this all make some sense? I hope it does. I really want people to understand the dynamics are always changing so you need to adapt or you will regret it.
Do what you want. I personally would not come to Mesa as a new hire. I have done the math. I have always been very close to spot on and my friends know it and call me to ask what I think. So do what you want. Good luck with your decisions. I have no reason to lead you wrong. It doesn't do me any good.