Originally Posted by
Airsupport
this was just 6 months ago, so not really a different time. the only problem with mesaba will be the upgrade time. i see it being more than 2 years, maybe 3. All the guys, like the one that came to pinnacle, that hung in there have 5 years plus at the company are waiting to upgrade. mesaba is only getting 36 new planes. that means there are plenty of fo's already at mesaba waiting to upgrade, probably enough to last at least a couple of years. the only time i see upgrade times dropping at mesaba is once all the planes are on property, and the back log of fo's waiting to upgrade finally do, then all the new hires will get their chance.
6 months ago Mesaba had only 49 saabs, and no announcement regarding the 900's. So yes it was actually a different time. Only 36 more planes? That is almost doubling our fleet. And I think you forgot to mention the 15 Crj's that we are taking from you guys. The newest new hire has a seniority number around 550 I believe (havent looked in a while). Within in 2 years there will be 100 aircraft on property, 5 capts, 5 fo's, per aircraft, meaning up grade time with that formula would be right around 2 years. That is not taking in to account attrition. I would say however that a new hire in the 750-800 range (what the currently are) will not see a 2 year upgrade. And unlike 9E a lot of us like it here and are planning on hanging around well past the 1000 PIC. By the way your friend you talked about is basically a street captain, so using him as an example to a new hire is pointless and has no valid comparison.