Originally Posted by Excargodog

That your situation is no different than anybody else’s except for how you react to it, ‘you’ in this case being the pilot group as a whole. Wholly owned or not, a regional dances to the tune of their codeshare partner who is paying them. And yes, the RLA isn’t working as it is supposed to, in part because the unions seem reluctant to go to federal court to try to compel the NMB to actually meet the timelines spelled out in the law. But I honestly think a good part of the problem - for those who have it - is the promise of flow.

None of the legacies and few of the majors really have any serious problem getting well qualified applicants. The only benefit of flow - to them - is that it is an effective device for insuring that their regionals get a large supply of cheap labor, because regionals DO have a problem getting well qualified applicants. So flow and cadet programs are mechanisms to assure a goodly supply of cheap labor at the regional.

And the major offering a flow program really doesn’t CARE if those in it are slow to progress. They are a butt in the seat, making money for the company at the regional and no matter how much they are making there - even as a Captain - it’s less than they would be paid as a second year FO at the major.

In fact, every year they can delay that person flowing to mainline is worth - to the company - the difference between a WO Captain with those years of seniority and a legacy Captain’s final year of pay, retirement, and bennies, which is a fairly princely sum. And while you PERSONALLY might have your apps out, a lot of your fellow pilots are falling right in to the trap. And the trap isn’t really just cheap pay, because - frankly speaking - it’s chickenfeed compared to what the company gains by delaying upgrade a few years. The most you are going to get in a new CBA is - what, $10 an hour. Times 1000 hours a year?

Stalling one pilot upgrading to AA mainline for one year will save AA the difference between a senior Envoy CA (currently $90 an hour but let’s bump it $10 and call it $100k annually) and a senior AA CA ($342+16%= roughly $400K). Because that’s how much less AA will eventually be paying them at that top rate. Stalling flow - delaying for one year the onset of mainline seniority and lowering the average seniority of the AA mainline pilot group is huge. It dwarfs the cost of initial training of newbies at mainline.

So every pilot that is ONE YEAR OLDER when he finally flows is a $300K WIN for AA management, just in that one last year, and more savings for every year it delays them getting to that top pay.

So if somebody at one of their regionals wants to be unaggressive about applying to majors, that’s great with them. Eventually they’ll MAKE you upgrade - they do have to have captains after all and the supply of DECs is finite - but nobody at AA is going TO ENCOURAGE anybody to get to mainline one instant sooner than they can drag it out.

You mention Compass. They have 700 pilots, give or take, and they attrit (or more accurately ‘graduate’) 20 pilots a month, with a current median ‘loiter time’ at that regional of something under four years before they move on to bigger and better things.

How long do people stay at Envoy?