pangolin

I generally agree with what you have been told but I would not sweat how many take the transition in IAD to the Ejet. IAD is going to be an Ejet base and I wager it's going to be MORE than just the 20 new CRJ 700 replacement Jets. We already do a ton of 175 flying from IAD so I expect some displacement from IAH to IAD. Voluntary or not. Many people who took the Ejet in IAH did so because they knew IAD was a likely possibility down the road. As far as the CRJ guys coming over to DFW - lets say 1/3 come over - that's 20 captains and 20 FO's. We lose about 5 captains a month and a larger number of FO's out of DFW. So I think attrition will absorb these with minimal impact ON THE CRJ side. It'll have a huge impact on the Ejet. While we have enough FO's to staff SOME of the additional jets, we don't have enough for all 20 and we ESPECIALLY don't have the captains to do so. We need to get people upgraded post haste and get as many of the 55 IAD captains to take the swap as we possibly can. Not to mention the Cargo operation where we are going to need at least 10 guys on each side to get started with it. We have not out hired attrition for the last two months. Mesa needs to pony up some pay if they expect to attract and retain enough to staff the airline. While there is some reserve time in IAH and even DFW presently it's because the company WANTS reserves and manipulates the PBS requirements in order to generate as many as they can. It's NOT in any way because we are properly or even nearly properly staffed. We are short staffed and getting shorter.