I spoke to someone who was part of the initial recall and that person flew maybe 10 hours an entire month on reserve and said the same for other reserve guys ie everyone sitting around scratching their butts. There’s basically no open time and if anything comes up they just end up junior manning people to deal with it.

One of the CAs told me the company is overstaffed and there is simply no need for the furloughed lot at all. Even though the union email said not everyone would be furloughed come April 1st, the scenario looks likely that a huge chunk would be because there simply is no flying.

United is giving the flying to Mesa and Republic because the 175 is the body of choice at the moment and there is no real worth in the 50 seaters with the loss of demand.

Adding a 700 and 900 on the operating certificate doesn’t do anything because AW doesn’t even have the bloody airplanes to begin with so either it buys/leases them or someone kindly gives them to us. Sure AW has positioned itself for the future but who the hell can tell what the future holds and they themselves probably can’t predict what the future holds.

Even with the recall the company won’t fork out money to send people to the sim for currency because we are of no use to them.

As I’ve said on a previous post, even when people are vaccinated, they then need to go back to work, start earning, pay off debt and get themselves out of their financial mess and regain the confidence to start spending again and considering it safe to travel and do normal things in order for the economic wheels to start rolling again. It won’t happen in the next 6 months because that is unrealistic and the damage will continue until this virus is curbed and we see a major decline in infection rates.

Maybe sometime in Q3 is when we might see a change if that...by then there’s no telling how many will quit or find other jobs and what kind of hole it’ll leave when the flying does return at some point. If 2021 does turn things around then it’s nothing short of a miracle.

I personally do think many aspiring pilots will rethink aviation as a career choice and decide to invest their money into something that’ll give them some job security regardless of the economy.

Covid decimated the industry and our jobs and those of us for whom this is our first rodeo have seen the dark side of the industry and indifference of employers/corporations when it comes to money and how if you ain’t senior enough then you ain’t worthy enough to be paid and kept on property when the chips are down because ultimately it is a business.

I’ll say it again...the whole “we are a family company and we care about our employees” and “we don’t have door clackers at AW” are the bull**** lines for the ages and many of us (myself included) were naive to buy it. There’s no brotherhood or camaraderie. It is just a job + survival and ultimately a regional airline like any other regional airline. Loyalty is no longer the currency of the realm, the currency is the currency of the realm.

Swear at me, hate me, call me negative or a cynic or an idiot, but I’d rather look at this mess as a mess than sugarcoat it or dampen how big a mess it is and be unrealistically optimistic.

G’night...