Originally Posted by
Jptaviation
So 12 weeks total to finish training but how long until you finish a IOE ? How many weeks or months of waiting after training ?
Today makes 12 weeks of wait for me, post checkride, still no IOE assignment.
The word from training management is that they need to prioritize Captain upgrades and DECs regardless of class date. A tentative expectation of getting to the FOs who are approaching consolidation deadlines is two more weeks. They acknowledged it’s a problem but are in shorter supply of Captains than FOs.
The COVID year really jacked with the pilot labor market, which was already bad to begin with. Everyone was locked in their current position for several months beyond normal, if they weren’t furloughed. So not only are Captains leaving quicker than they can be replaced now that Majors are hiring again, but FOs who were eligible to upgrade throughout 2020 were not able to upgrade due to stagnant growth. Those guys continued to accrue total and turbine time, and they are highly competitive to move to LLCs. I don’t blame pilots who are not bothering with the upgrade process and subjecting themselves to junior Captain status when they can just maintain currency while they wait for a class date at an LLC and go make more money as an FO on bigger metal.
Management says they are attempting to bring on new check airmen to relieve the bottleneck, but of course that process involves FAA approval so it’s not an instant thing. For the moment they are doing the best they can, or so they assure us.
We are all getting paid min guarantee to sit here, which is better than nothing but not nearly as much as we’d like. Honestly the biggest concern at this point is how rusty we’ll be when we finally get our assignments. Most of us are still doing some maintenance-studying on flows, limitations and other SOPs, but there is no amount of chair flying that will help with landing or stick and rudder type skills.