Of our new hires, many still don't make it through the training or get off of OE. We are coming up with negative numbers of pilots.
No upgrades in sight. There were four awarded in August and none of them have heard anything on training. They've been told they can't due to the severe FO shortage. Crew Availablity shows 7 CA and 15 FO resignations this month so far. And tommorow it'll be 16 FOs.
They want to hire Instructor/Management pilots and salary them and send them out on the line to fly. Thus trying not to upgrade anyone.
Now they're bringing in retired pilots to fly planes under part 91 like going to heavy checks and the paint shop. This circumventing any more FOs to upgrade. Are we short? Yes we are. My FO last week called in sick and I did a 4 day with 7 different FOs including two being junior manned.
We even cancelled flights due to lack of FOs. The FO I am flying with today is on his last trip and tomorrow is his last day as he heads over to PSA. He said if he stayed, he'd never upgrade.
I can't say that I blame him.
I wouldn't be surprised if they once again call in RSV CAs to fly and put LCAs in the right seat. Or even worse, force to downgrade just to have enough FOs.
I'm hoping that won't happen. But it's just hope.