Originally Posted by
DoNoHarm
At our WO regional, we are losing lots of LCAs in the 6 months prior to flow to the other legacy and cargo airlines. Those that put in the effort and work hard tend to get picked up pretty quickly when they reach about 5 years on property. LCA, good flight time, clean record, and putting in a little effort with applications. All of this costs a couple thousand dollars, but means hundreds of thousands and significant improvement in QOL due to higher seniority for the next 25+ years at their legacy carrier later on. This few thousand dollars is a very, very small price to pay.
Although there are a few pilots that are great and are content to wait out the flow, the majority of the flows would NEVER get hired by a legacy. At the same time, most of the best pilots that we could send to AA are hired by Delta or FedEx (or the last dozen LCAs to get picked up by United in the last few weeks).
As you know Chrisreedrules, we are losing more senior guys to legacy airlines than we are junior pilots to places like Spirit and Allegiant.
Well I have access to some data you may or may not. And I can assure you that the flows from your WO aren’t just the “leftovers”. Most flows are just as, if not more qualified than many off the street hires at AA. The myth that flow pilots are just lazy and less desirable pilots and don’t want to bother applying anywhere else because they have a “free” job waiting on them etc is a fallacy.