PSA has been on a roll for firing people and putting letters in v files for years. That being said I don't know about most people but I busted my ass to get hired at FedEx, United, Delta and to a lesser extent UPS. Nobody called before I flowed. That's just the way the cookie crumbled, I'm sure there's folks who aren't trying to get hired though.

I know a lot of great pilots who have flowed to AA and didn’t go somewhere else first. Not for lack of trying though...

This isn’t a knock against anyone who flows.

But how many people flow after being hired by another major?

There are two possibilities here

1) the WO folks hired by DL UA SW etc are a randomly selected group indistinguishable from those who aren’t hired

2) that group is above average. Leaving behind a group that’s below average.

Or maybe a lot of the flows want to be at AA instead of United or Delta, so they don’t even try to get hired elsewhere because they already have a flow to their 1st choice.

As an Envoy flow I can tell you that a lot of guys I spoke with the last couple years have been waiting for AA, mainly for the retirement numbers and given the average age of a new hire at AA was high 30s/low 40s compared with the fact that both UA and DL have already hired 5000ish guys in 7 years with a much lower average age...much better movement plus DFW for those that want it.

As far as the bottom half of the list, those guys we’re asking how to get picked up at any major quickest.

Sounds like a few people are trying desperately to pretend that raw milk put through a cream separator will yield half and half from both spigots.

That isn’t my experience.

I've been very critical of those that simply depend on flow to get them to a major.

That said, if you need a regional to get PIC to make your apps competitive, by the time you are competitive, you're pretty close to flowing. If AA is your preferred destination, at the point you're close to flowing, you probably aren't trying to get hired by Delta, United, FedEx, UPS, Southwest and you sure as hell are not trying to get hired by Agilent, Frontier, Sun Country, etc.

There are a LOT of people I've flown with that fit that description.

But to the point of the thread, there are quite few I've flown with that would never get hired at a legacy without the flow (no degree being the biggest thing)... I think most of those would still land at a major though if it weren't for flow given the future retirement situation.

I don’t think it would hurt to have a barrier or two added to the flow. Like a training record review or a look at a personnel file. Probably way past time to go back and change that process...

Anyway, toward the end of my stint on the 190 a captain told me the following story: He had been hired by Airways from Mesaba. When he was at Mesaba a captain there had been, allegedly, drugging and sexually assaulting flight attendants. Crazy story today, back then he was allowed to resign. Fast forward to this 190 CA showing up at the CLT training center for an R9 and guess who’s strolling around... the guy now works for PSA and gets to walk in the door at AA.

The flow serves its purpose in many ways. It alleviates the pressure on HR to interview and hire an enormous amount of pilots and acts as a recruiting tool for the wholly owned regionals. If it was causing a giant headache for AA they would change it.

I'm sure there are avenues for bad people via the flow, but I'm guessing most people aren't like that.

In regards to the PSA flow, AA has always been able refuse people. To my knowledge they haven't exercised that ability yet.

Many of you are acting as if getting hired instead of flowing has any bearing on whether or not a pilot will be a desirable person to work with. And many of you are insinuating that a person who chooses to flow to AA rather than go somewhere else is a less desirable employee. That’s absurd.

Sure there will always be a few bad apples. But plenty of pilots hired at AA, UA, and Delta outside of the flow and interview agreements have been bad apple employees. It’s just the way it is.