Originally Posted by
Cujo665
The major problem with your theory is that it is not a preferential hiring program. Delta and United have preferential hiring programs. AA has a direct seniority based system that is - for convenience - called "flow." Now, the ENY/PDT/PSA interview is itself the AA interview. Every pilot hired in seniority order can transfer to AA when their seniority will hold a slot at AA. This is very much like you would bid a new base, or new equipment by seniority. Same thing. I know for a fact that the AAG legal department was very concerned about the newer "flow" program creating an extremely valid argument supporting single carrier. They still are, which is why they have slowly throttled the flow/transfer from it's original 60% of all new AA new hires down to about 35% of all AA new hires.
While they are definitely not being paid as AA pilots, or under the work rules of AA pilots.... there is a legal argument to be made that they should be as a single carrier. However, I would advise the PSA/ENY/PDT guys not to pursue that at this time. While it would be good for the industry to take the regional flying back to mainline; it would guarantee that almost every PSA/PDT/ENY pilot gets furloughed in October as the APA guys would love to have 5,000 pilots junior to them right now.
i know how it works. I was a captain at PSA up until February of this year when I left.
if you were a PSA, envoy or Piedmont pilot and every pilot senior to you was electing not to flow you would be the first guy out... right.
so follow this for a second. American does not have any new hire classes running and they furlough 1000 pilots. It takes 3 years for all the furloughed pilots to get recalled. Then they run the first new hire class in a 3.5 year period of time. Guess what. It added 3.5 years to your flow time. Call it what you want. It’s a preferential hiring program. Until a pilot “flows” and is handed their AA badge and given an APA number they do not work for American Airlines.
I was a captain at PSA which happened to be owned by the same holdings company as American. I enjoyed access to a preferential hiring program that didn’t even require me to interview. All I had to do was have a clean record for the preceding two years and have two years aggregate captain experience. I was not an American pilot.
Saying anything otherwise is not being honest.