Originally Posted by
Skyhawk121
So here's to hoping that 2021 is better and these pilots get to come back to class sooner rather than later.
Yeah but we also need to be prudential.
Originally Posted by
Utah
LOL.
Block hours for January are under 100k. Last January over 135K. Last March was over 144K. We've got enough flying right now for around 3500 pilots. The only thing that's keeping over 5000 employed is reduced line values, 67 hour reserve lines, and a number of pilots out on LOAs. During normal times nearly 10% of the pilot group is doing some sort of new hire, transition, or upgrade training, or on the way out the door to a new job. Obviously without that happening, and most of the instructors back to flying, we're extremely well staffed.
And that less than 100k block hours for next month is being done with aircraft flown around with less than 70% of the seats filled.
Exactly what I was getting at. I also noticed this year I've done a lot of routes and overnights that used to be done by mainline, and seem to be going back to mainline this winter and into the spring. Some bases/partners shifted flying to us and we kept the appearance of "busy as always," and that's slowing down now. Some of it was downgauging but maintaining frequency. Moving forward it seems frequency might be decreases and consolidating to fewer mainline instead of spreading it mainline/regional. Almost every base was averaged at like 72 hours for January, and that's exactly what I got awarded. We're going to have to see every base creep back up into the 80s for base average credit, no more VTO, start bringing back trainees, and also have mainline start picking back up, before we hire.