Originally Posted by
67Creek
AA's regional pilots are already flying exclusively AA passengers on AA airplanes. It doesn't benefit them that much (some, but not much) to flow you out of an E175 into an A319. It benefits them significantly more to keep the 175 pilot and hire someone that's outside of their system. They'll eventually need to snatch up as much of the qualified labor pool as they can, to keep it from their competitors.
Flow seems to primarily be a recruiting tool for the regionals. The flow allows them to bring in, and retain, pilots for less money and worse contracts. As long as AA has a long list of qualified people that would love to interview for a job, like they have now and will have for the foreseeable future, don't expect the flow time to drop to less than it takes to be competitive for the majors.
After having talked with different people working in recruiting at several different airlines recently, I can tell you that the list of truly qualified applicants is not nearly as long as you may think.
And regarding the flows being a mere gimmick to entice new recruits into the ranks at the respective WO regionals... That is true. BUT, it’s also true that the flow keeps labor costs very low at the AA WOs compared to other regionals who have top-heavy seniority lists. The flows will continue as long as AA is running classes. And they will increase.
I hear people who work for other airlines besides the WOs come with the theory that AA will stop the flows to save their regional feed. If that was their plan they would do what United is doing and not be consolidating their regional feed like what Delta is doing. They can’t shut the flow off because they have too much reliance on the WOs at this point and they would start bleeding regional pilots. In fact things will only continue to improve at the WOs.