Originally Posted by
Skyvector
You won't get an honest answer to a hypothetical question like that. They will all say 1st year pay raise and act smug. But I've been in the van with crews from other airlines. I've had them in my jumpseat, talked to them in the waiting room of the medical examiner's office, etc...
They all go wide eyed when I explain the details of Envoy's flow through. None of them are aware of how it actually works and think we still have to interview at some point. I've lost count how many of them have said something to the extent of "wish we had that at expressjet/mesa/republic"
But asking a hypothetical online? Yeah...you might as well put down a step stool to aid them in climbing up on their high horse.
This has been my experience as well. In the real world, I can't tell you how many times I have had someone tell me that they wish they had a flow program. Even on APC, it comes down to only a handful of guys that desparage the flow so much. I believe the most of it is motivated by jealously, fear or justification of life/career choices.
If Ric would stop messing around with the class numbers and made sure that they NEVER flow less than 50% of a class and increase pay by $10 an hour for FOs at each pay step, they would get all the new hires they need. The longer they take to do this, the less affect such measures will have on recruitment. The sooner they do the two things above, the quicker the new pilots will get off reserve, upgrade and then flow. Once they consistantly EXCEED expectations when it comes to those 3 sought after items, the machine will perpetuate itself. Mesa is an excellant example of the powerful effect that the momentum of movement can have on an airline. The additional 5 pilots envoy flows today, will reap 10 times that many in the years to come.
It takes more energy to get a ball rolling but once you do, the it will require less energy then nudging the ball along little by little. Up until this point, they have only been nudging the ball.