Flow + Attrition means that the reality for your time to flow is better than what the bar room napkin math says it is when you only go off the assumption of every single person ahead of you waiting for their time to flow.

Trouble is, there is no way to accurately predict the number of people ahead of you who will leave the company for whatever reason prior to their number being called to flow. All you can take from that is that your actual time to flow will be to some degree better than the straight math on the above mentioned assumption.

And you're right, the flow most certainly is a recruiting tool, with the difference being that only the 3 AA regionals have a true no interview flow to a mainline carrier. Why wouldn't you advertise that? The flow is currently working as advertised. Every month we are sending people to AA.

If literally every single person ahead of me takes the flow and we don't grow at all (and we don't experience another 9/11 or economic collapse), I've got 4 more years till I flow, and I've been here just over 1 year. So, ~5 years to go from regional to mainline is historically pretty quick. There are thousands of guys in the regionals today who have spent decades there. So, I have no complaint about waiting 5 years, especially in light of the improvements in pay at the WO's. And the reality is that I really have less than 4 years to go because of non-flow attrition combined with strong growth well right now. And in the meantime I'll still be applying off the street for UA, DL, AA, FX, etc. If they don't call me, I've still got the flow.

So, 4 years in total to get to mainline? Not too shabby at all. But, the longer you wait to get in line, the longer you'll be in it.