I agree we are short staffed right now and they are scrambling to cover flights. However, don't overlook the opportunity here either. If you are single and either live in base or have an easy commute then there is opportunity to make a ton of money and move up fast if/when things turn around. I talked to an FO the other day who credited 176 hours in one month and the record is just over 200 hours. You will be off reserve almost immediately if you take MKE. If you want to fly your butt off, build time and make CA money it's not a bad play. When the hiring catches up you will be riding the wave. Remember, we only have 600 pilots so that's a lot less to get out of your way to CA.

 

It's great that people can make a lot of money here, but at some point you need a break and the company isn't giving it to anyone. Everyone up to the #1 pilot being junior manned. This isn't a way to run an airline.

The hiring bubble has popped, make no mistake. In ATW, we had so many people they used a school bus to shuttle people from the hotel to the airport, now we're back to a normal hotel van.

Recruitment isn't happening because they can't spare pilots to go to events which makes zero sense.

We are pulling into the busy season with no pilots, everyone is being rerouted, over worked, fatiguing out, sicking out because they're worked too hard. You cannot plan your days off, even your first 2 days off, double junior mans aren't unheard of.

But the company continues to act like reputation from 50 years ago is what's going to keep this place afloat. It's not. They trashed the reputation of a company that's over extending the pilots, everyone's exhausted, everything delayed.

I get the pros of this place, but from a scheduling standpoint it's a hard sell when they're truly come down to abusing the hell out of everyone.

 

-Peter Drucker

What if we run out of QoL? What then? Early in the past decade, while there were thousands of furloughees walking the street, there were periods of plenty on some carriers’ schedules. Overtime/premium pay for all my friends. Need some cash? Pick your open time and win! This practice was viewed (correctly, imo) as a party foul by the union and line pilots—if there was capacity on the table then their friends shouldn’t be out fending for themselves. The most egregious example being UPS, who pressed their “management pilots” onto the schedule, not to maintain currency/credibility in the jet, but to supplement the line holders while they had a token 44 pilots out in the woods.

I view our current situation with a similar lens—no, we don’t have anyone furloughed. But what we do have is a high signal to noise ratio of folks claiming “forced junior manning”, a recent base reorganization that has inflated our commuter population to painfully high levels, leading to full days at home in a given month to be counted on one hand with fingers left over. All of this while the company is placing side-bets galore (bonuses, premium pay, open time wheeling and dealing).

What’s interesting about this scenario is that both management and the union are holding close their own pieces to complete the puzzle. Management is clutching resources to throw around on side-bets, while the pilot group is trying to find identity within an appropriate QoL and compensation balance. This is a golden opportunity, for both sides, not to wait for the pilot group to march with pitchforks, but to recognize a longer term vision: it’s in both of our interests to cut the side-bets and premium pay “opportunities”, and put the chips in the pot. The return on this investment is that when it comes time for contract review with our partner carrier, we don’t look like a Benny Hill skit with our completion percentage. Higher straight compensation could lead to a fuller stack of candidates for the recruiters to sift through, less attrition in the training department, and incrementally slow the revolving door at the mid to bottom end of the seniority list. (I’m looking at the numbers between the 1 Jan list and current FLICA and it appears we’re running a full sprint up a muddy hill…and going slowly but steadily backwards.)

What we have: culture. This company is still doing well for its size in grooming and caring for each other with a positive orientation toward culture. But that is a finite resource; just like Mike McKaskey treated Bears Fan culture as his own personal piggy bank for three decades...at some point, it runs out. Run people ragged and put ‘em back in the barn wet for long enough, and your culture begins to erode like so much tooth enamel. Throw “Air Force Pilot Retention” into Google for some light reading on the topic. Culture can run dry.

 

I cant figure out why people arent flocking to come here. If you beat the odds and dont destroy your career by washing out, you get to look forward to 4 days off a month. But hey we got trip rigs!!! Just don't ignore those acars messages.

 

You always can take a day in lieu if you are junior manned which guarantees you 12 days off every month. Of course you could be junior manned on your day in lieu but with a 10 junior mans per year cap this can only happen so many times.

 

Getting 1 out of 5 choices isn't the same as getting the day you bidded off, off. Working 12/13 days with one day off in the middle is hardly ideal.

 

Exactly, but shut up and fly!!!!

This isn't sustainable. They've turned against a lot of long time loyal people that are now anything but. The anger and lack of morale is palpable now. I can't imagine every other regional is doing well, but congrats, come here, be junior in MKE with an impossible commute and even worse schedules to just never get a day you originally had off, off. Management flounders while the union keeps pocketing FPL for surveys. Amazing leadership on both sides.

 

Oh and if you choose to get a random day off back...one of 5 that you had to choose and Probaly end up working anyway.. Youll lose your premium pay too!! Have your schedule disrupted and lose your premium pay.

 

I can remember when UA bought us the 1st time Air Wisconsin, Inc. On paper UA still owns ZW Inc. AWAC is basically a spin off of Inc.

 

Quit living in the past. What does that have to do with anything? Incorporated to Corporation to LLC is a backwards way to run a company.