'Historic' year for Atlas Air as profits soar, but Florida West will be grounded - The Loadstar

 

“We hired about 370 pilots last year across all of our aircraft types. We think we have an attractive contract in place and certainly believe we’’ll be able to hire the additional pilots we need in 2017 and 2018, as we grow for Amazon and other customers.”

This is the definition of denial.

 

How is it denial? The seniority list seems to keep growing every year and people like you keep telling potential pilots "come on in, the water's fine", even though places like Kalitta and Allegiant have far more attractive contracts. The company seems to think the contract is good enough to attract, at least, the dregs of the pilot world and enough of them to continue growing.. So, so far, have they been proven wrong?

 

Our wages and our overall compensation package are significantly lower compared to our peers in the industry and yet the company publicly claims that our contract is "competitive"....hence denial.

Furthermore, I have never, NEVER recommended Atlas to anyone. So please don't categorize me in with the "people like me, saying, come on in, the water is fine".

Moreover, even if you have a copy of K4 and G4 contracts in front of you, unless you work there and get to know how scheduling and the respective company treats crew members with regards to work rules, how can you say they "have far more attractive contracts"? This is not a rhetorical question, I'd like to know how you quantify your statement.

As for the last part of your question, whether the company believes they can staff for 2017 and 2018 or whether they believe that they have a competitive contract or not is irrelevant to the statistical fact that they have serious attrition and retirement issues that may potentially outpace seniority list growth. Anybody have some numbers they can put up?

Note the Teamsters excerpts:

....staffing problems are widespread at AAWW. Attrition data compiled by the pilots’ union shows that pilot turnover more than tripled over the last three years. In a recent survey of Atlas Air pilots, 65 percent of surveyed pilots said they are planning to apply to another airline in the coming year. Eighty-eight percent of respondents said their carrier does not have enough pilots to meet the long-term needs of Amazon and other major customer DHL.

 

I did some rough math for Jan 2016 to Jan 2017 and I saw approximately 330 hired against a net gain of approximately 180.

Also, only looking at those hired for Jan 2016 to Jan 2017, the attrition is about 10%.

Overall attrition during that period averaged about 12 per month. I know of at least one 20 year CA who has his apps out and is committed to leaving.

 

I compared the Dec. 2016 list to the Feb. 2017 and I show net loss of 7. It will probably get worse this year.

 

Dave,
1-31-2016 seniority list shows 1273. 1-31-2017 shows 1451. That's a net GAIN of 178.

 

They hired 330 in your example time frame to add 180. Dave said from Dec '16 to now. In that period we have had negative attrition, even with classes ongoing. So if we need 300+ for Amazon they better hire 600+ at a minimum. Not going to happen. They gambled that it wouldn't get worse and lost that bet.

 

What math are you using??? The NET result for the past year is POSITIVE. If they hired 1000 but lost 950, that's still a NET POSITIVE gain of 50. That's all I'm saying. Yes, they need to slow/stop attrition to staff Amazon, but 2016 was still a NET POSITIVE GAIN.

 

Are you not reading the dates? Again, the past 3 months have been negative. I'm sure the previous 20 years were all positive, but all that matters is the current rate for these 767s. You're not seeing the people pouring out of here? Only getting worse as this drags on.