These threads are interesting in that they remind me of political garbage on other social media. You have your left and your right, both of which are incapable of accepting the validity of their counterparts arguments.

What we have here are the envoy is the best, and envoy is the worst. The two groups don't seem to accept what the other side is saying.

What would have to happen for those of you who discourage new hires from coming to envoy before you started to sell envoy as a good place to work? It seems as though the improvements that have been awarded recently, although not as much as I would like to see, fall on deaf ears and it is as though those improvements are actually making envoy worse because they aren't improvement enough.

On the flip side; exactly how awful would envoy have to become in order for the salesmen group begin to acknowledge that envoy isn't as great as it should be? Why is the contentious relationship between labor and management ignored by these posters?

Here's my take on what is going on at envoy. I'll start with the bad.

Schedules are awful. The 4-on-2-off is really taking a toll on a lot of people. It is absolutely ridiculous that we have such inefficient schedules that lead to being away from home for so much time without working and making money. This is more a product of AAG producing flight files for envoy that are wildly inefficient and thus creating miserable pairings and trips. When and if, big if, AAG starts to give us a more envoy friendly flight file the schedules will improve. This is the biggest detriment to the farming out of flying, as when it was just American Eagle doing the flying the ability to make efficient schedules was far easier due to the massive selection of flights and pairings.

The company is blanket denying return days that were awarded for a contract violation settlement. I see this as a further violation of the contract which states that they will have the airline properly staffed, not sure why we haven't filed a grievance on that yet. This, however, doesn't effect new hires, it just affects the overall morale of the pilot group and creates further animosity towards management.

This year, just finishing up my 4th year, I will make just less than a new hire with all of the new incentives. This is also a slap in the face to everybody who works their butt off day in and day out or the company. The company knows it needs to hire people, but is unwilling to create meaningful improvements for those on property. That attitude throws more coal on the fire with regards to the knowledge that management really doesn't care about the well being if their employees.

With that being said, those bonuses are bringing in new hires. And we're on to the good. So long as there is movement, which isn't necessarily something you can 100% count on, envoy is a good place to work. It gives me a great peace of mind to know that I will eventually flow up to American if Delta/United/FedEx/UPS, et. al. Don't happen within the next 4-5 years. I can apply to the other major carriers, which all pay more than American at the moment, but still have a mainline career in my back pocket. This only happens if there is movement, and right now there is. With the retirements at AA over the next 10 years the flow will continue, and will likely be necessary for them to maintain their regional operation, as if they stop the flow pilots will jump ship like the rats on the titanic.

New York reopening is a positive. Having had LGA along with MIA close was horrible, but they're reopening a base which is welcome news. I hope that trend continues and wouldn't be surprised *speculation alert* to see consolidation amongst the regional feed over the next several years.

The FO retention bonuses were a welcome boost for us despite them being 1/2 of endeavors bonuses. At the low FO pay $10k annually goes a long way. There were added captain bonuses, but they were pretty meaningless in the grand scheme of things. While it is my belief that management needs to open the pocket book to continue the upward trend, those bonuses were the beginning of reversing the negative trend. But rest assured that our management will do the absolute minimum required to keep our airline staffed, and they haven't even really met that minimum yet. The biggest two things the company could do to improve our lives would be to fix the schedules and agree to a min day pay or duty/trip rigs, but that's basically a pipe dream.

The large new hire classes are a good sign. If you are thinking of coming here now and understand the pros and cons, you will have dozens of people below you in no time, and with movement continuing it should be a shorter stay at envoy than those who have been on property. But do understand that those who are already here didn't start with $20k bonuses and $37/hr first year pay, and really didn't get enough back to make up for the shafting during the multiple concessionary contract rounds.

The latest vacancy bid for 100 captain is also a good sign the were moving in the right direction.

In short, the TL;DR version, if you will,
take what the detractors and the salesmen say with a grain of salt. Could envoy be better? Yes, much. Could envoy be worse? Also yes. Was this company better when it was Eagle flying for AMR? Yes, at least for the very brief time that I was at Eagle before the merger, and from what the old guys tell me.
Edit: to clarify, I'm still at envoy but was hired only a year prior to the merger.

Things aren't great but they're getting better.