Originally Posted by
bigtime209
He's talking about something totally different- flowback. Back in the early 2000s when AA furloughed pilots, an agreement was made to allow Eagle pilots to eventually flow to AA in exchange for letting AA furlough pilots and have them "flow back" to Eagle until they could get recalled. The guys that were flowbacks were obviously not happy to be flying at Eagle and were a lot of times not enjoyable to work with.
Close, but not exactly.
In 1997 AA wanted RJ's at Eagle. AA pilots did not want to allow that, but the writing was on the wall in the industry. Skywest and Comair were already operating them, and had for years, and passengers preferred the RJ's over the turboprops. Finally, a four party agreement was reached between AA pilots, AA management, AE pilots, and AE management to allow a limited number of RJ's, defined as jets with 45 or more seats, to be flown by AE.
The AA pilots were worried that the RJ's at Eagle would cost them jobs eventually, so they negotiated to be able to follow the jets down to Eagle in the event of a furlough at AA. AE pilots said, hold on a minute! WE will allow you to flow down to Eagle RJ CA seats in the event of a furlough only IF we are given the chance to flow UP to AA.
All parties agreed, and the four party Flow back, Flow through side letter was signed.
A few Eagle pilots flowed up from early '99 through the Fall of 2001 before the bottom dropped out of the industry and AA pilots were indeed furloughed. Some of the furloughs ended up as AE RJ CA's, per the agreement. A few stuck around for years and most were great guys. Some were idiots. But that's normal, really. Any pilot group will have its misfits.