Originally Posted by
chrisreedrules
They should be worried. Pay at the AAG wholly-owneds is below industry average and any new hire with half a brain knows that waiting 8+ years on a flow in this industry is downright foolish. Pay needs to come up and quickly if they want to fully staff their wholly-owneds. In some ways I hope new hires stop coming. Maybe it will encourage AAG to take more flying back from us and put it back at mainline where it belongs.
Last I checked the WO's aren't so far off from Compass, Republic or SkyWest in terms of pay and work rules. People today will go to Regionals that have a fast upgrade and the ones that have long upgrades will lose people very fast. Where do you go? A regional that has a great first year pay and 4 year upgrade or one that the pay isn't that high but has a 1 year upgrade? I believe right now PSA and Piedmont offer those fast upgrades and will get pilots.
You make 8 years to get to a major sound like its a big deal. That was about the avg. time it took for regional pilots to get to a major. Most had 2-3 year upgrades and spent 3-5 years as Captains before they were competitive for the majors. Sure some went earlier but 8 years isn't a terrible number.