Originally Posted by
KC135
January starts 20 guaranteed RATP new hires from the flight school pipeline program. Their flight school cost will be subsidized and details on their training contract should be announced next month. So that's 20 a month plus the 10-15 others that want to work for half regional pay. Just a rumor but I heard that an agreement with a second flight school is being negotiated so any negotiation leverage we thought we had is quickly going away. Paying for ratings and replacing attrition is much much cheaper than giving the whole pilot group a large raise. As I've been saying for a long time, expect no TA for years.
I'm not sure if this is true (losing negotiating leverage). If we do not have a new contract, it would be better for those new pilots to break their training contract and repay the $100k. If you are trying to compare $50k first year followed by several years of under $120k, going to any of the Big 4 with a new contract or even taking a regional job with the bonuses would be more lucrative financially. Also, if we do not have a contract a year from now, we'll almost definitely have attrition higher than 30/month. Of course, that's if we even have enough pilots left to lose 30/month.
I think we have a large group of pilots hanging on by their fingernails hoping that Uncle M being involved with negotiations will get us a contract sooner rather than later. Based on what the union said about the last company "package" we aren't even close. If Uncle M decides he really doesn't want to provide industry standard pay and work rules and he says to hell with it, the NMB is coming. If that happens, the floodgates will open because all of those hoping a contract is coming soon will bail. I can't imagine that whatever program they come up with can overcome that kind of attrition.