Originally Posted by
Denny Crane
With so many different aircraft types vs one type, we cannot get away from the fact that we need more pilots on staff because of training. It's not our job to figure out a way to get pilots through training faster. That's the companys job. It seems they are having problems scheduling training by the last conversion date of and AE bid and with scheduling IOE's promptly. In the next few years they are going to have to figure that one out. Maybe going to the NW way of a monthly equipment bid would allievate the training bottleneck in both instances listed above?
Denny
Although I'd prefer a monthly bid, either way they do it still results in a similar to identical physical training pipeline/bottleneck. That is why they can go Jack Spratt all they want on staffing but they better get ahead of the upcoming retirement curve soon because once the wave starts, and no one really knows when it will, lean categories like we have today will see mass cancellations and even "properly manned" categories will be hurting.
I think we are rapidly approaching the time where we will not be able to get by with any lean staffing in any categories. With mandatory retirements in the single digits the last couple years we've been seeing (low) triple digit numbers actually leave. Statistics are somewhat unknown, but some percentage will leave early and odds are that number will increase in the next year or two before age 65 mandatories hit. The first couple years of that are manageable as long as everyone else who can stay does stay, but that is doubtful and beyond those couple years the outflow gets to be pretty big. A year or so after that and we had better have a massive hiring/training pipeline in progress and the infrastructure to handle it or the little games of lean staffing footsie we've been playing with pending reality will smoke our six bad.
I"m not advocating massive fat staffing right now. Far from it. Its nice to ride out some time while we can living in the land of unlimited GSWC's, paying down debt and all that jazz. But our time in that playground is limited. We know when it has to be over, but it can start to be over well before that and any time spent in that playground before reality hits at this point is pure bonus round speculation that borders on outright gambling.
We will need more bodies and training infrastructure and odds are we will need both before the mandatory numbers hit critical mass. I think the company knows this and there is the often rumored battle of wits between running very lean and preparing for the inevitable but the time in the lean happy time fun zone is coming to an end and we will not be able to wait until it fully hits to prepare for it.