C17B74

Good stuff fellow aviators. Some great insight or aspects of the E3 variables. Appreciate all your efforts, knowledge and historical data points. Definitely a “situation” in some form or another regarding business practices specifically and impact principles.

The Dominican

It is a cyclical business, and it was very nice that after the downturn of 9/11 many American pilots found jobs on the expat market.

Elevation

This is another really good point. We flood the world with American pilots. This was particularly true before 1991, but it's still very easy to find American pilots. We can't begrudge other pilots for doing the same thing we do, so fair is fair.

I also think this observation is great for pointing out the damage that can be done when a country opens itself up to too many foreign pilots. There are countries that have become utterly dependent on foreign pilots. Their training pipelines haven't been developed. Availability of foreign crews removes the incentive for them to get their pilot training pipelines up and improved to acceptable standards. Doing so would take decades and a liberalization of airspace, changes in taxation, etc. The result is less GA and fewer mid-level flying jobs. This means fewer jobs in the short term and a strangulation of their aviation industry in the long term. When a local power-broker decides to buy some new jets, they're still stuck hiring from outside the country. Eventually this even leads to bizarre cultural-technical effects. There are countries where the government air wing, royal flight, etc. will only hire Western aviators, for example.

This was why the Chicago convention of 1947 was a thing. Smart people saw, when aviation was exploding after the Second World War some system was required to keep local aviation alive.

Of course the factors that kill small aviation in parts of the world aren't just limited to the pilot market. The amount of state support for some airlines over others, preferential fuel pricing, political dynasties, corruption all play very large or larger roles than the market for pilots. I'm ignoring all of these because we're focused on pilot hiring practices here, but we need to acknowledge the variables we're not considering. I'm also ignoring the military pipeline for pilots here. Globally, air forces are flying fewer airplanes with more capability and greater expense. Even Sub-Saharan nations get their hands on Su-27s, etc. This all means fewer pilots needed and less pilot production from military air arms. We all live in a world where we're used to reading Stripes articles about us needing as many Air Force, Marine and Navy pilots as we can get. It's easy to think that we have a big air force. Today we have a little over 5000 planes flying. In 1959 the Air Force Alone had nearly 21000 planes active in their inventory. That's a lot less pilot training going on. This has played out in Air Forces, Air Wings, Fleet Air Arms, etc. across the world.

Years before I came to Atlas, I made my money flying airplanes and being a weird guy in other parts of the world. The experience was wonderful, but this was one facet of my presence that made me think our net impact was close to zero.

160to4

From the Union Crew Call today, it was mentioned that momentum had been building to review pay. However as of “the last two days” the amount of pilots RSVPing to roadshows in Australia, this has all but burst whatever was warming up. E3 is being abused and as has been said; will affect contract negotiations

CRJJ

And attrition has dramatically slowed down so….

767pilot

The last couple of UPS classes have been pretty light on Atlas guys.

Swakid8

A lot of the folks who have been waiting on legency carriers to hire again have all left or in the process of leaving (Covid hires). I personally can count on one hand how many folks from my new hire class are still around. I have a feeling those who are getting hired on now will be sticking around longer with a few bailing.

AnythingBoeing

As an early E3 guy this is of concern to me. I don't want our presence here to become a controversial issue in the cockpit. Having spoken to guys going to the roadshow I'm not sure how many are serious about relocating to the US to take up the job. The pool of qualified pilots who will come may not be as deep as the company thinks and will not last forever. As someone who wants to finish my career here I hope that the concerns of the union are addressed.

Elevation

The big thing is we define abuse of the E3 program as something that Americans are doing in an American company using American laws. Anybody who begrudges an Australian pilot for taking a legitimate opportunity is missing the point.

Regarding flight deck drama, pick the issue du jour and avoid talking about it. Having friends outside of work helps too.

Basically you're here. You're one of us. If someone's angry, let 'em fume. You can't control what people get upset about. Why feel uncomfortable at your offfice?

HPIC

According to the union crew call, about 350 pilots RSVP’d that they would be at, or are interested in going to, they roadshows Atlas is putting on in Australia. If even half of those pilots are offered and accept a job, the company has no reason at all to offer anything more to the pilots when they have a significant percentage of the pilot group with their work/residency authorization tied to Atlas and without a lot of other companies to go to that will sponsor them.

Of course, this will likely be a short term solution that will bite management in the future when aviation ramps back up to full capacity in Australia and the majority of those pilots go back to their old jobs, or new jobs, in Oz. I’m sure most would rather live/work at home where they’re from and all their friends/family are.

Most of us(I cannot say all unfortunately) are professionals that will treat the Aussies as professional equals and not take it out on them. The disdain for the vast majority of us is aimed straight at Atlas senior management.