Anyone hear on the recent pilot call how worried DN sounded about pilots leaving to legacies once hiring kicks into full pace?

Sounded worried that majority of the pilot group will leave and said to “give breeze a chance”. It’s been years and not really anything improves, and many QOL aspects are gone. Majority of younger crowd will leave this place unless a CBA or LOA is introduced and company does not see that. This will impact investors knowing how easily pilots will leave knowing the PPB is rarely honored and profitability is impacted due to cost of the pilots.

At least we were appreciated and got a $50 gift card to the breeze store for profitability! Time to pay $75 for a over priced hoodie my kid might wear around the house.
Thoughts? Anyone else concerned?

 

I hope you don’t honestly think that investors know that the PPB is

 

I won’t be concerned until the hiring market picks up substantially more. What really runs attrition at Breeze is other LCCs hiring away the regional pilots, of which none of them are. Same with Southwest. There’s just too much talent in the pool looking for jobs. In fact, just a couple of months ago, DN also said he wished there was a bit more attrition. Last year there was almost zero. Why? Recycling year 3-4 pay pilots with year 1-2 is cheaper. They account for that reduction and somewhat count on it. If the top 25% stay forever and the rest of the 75% constantly churns at year 1-2 pay, imagine how much savings that is compared to 100% of the pilot group being on year 12 pay!

Breeze isn’t going out of business. It will either continue like JetBlue for years until its unique nature is expired, competition catches up, etc, or it will be acquired by JetBlue at some later date. It won’t just cease to exist.

 

dude stop thinking you’re still at Mesa, you’re never going to get a contract. Still talking about them wanting to average us on year 2 to 3 pay. If you’ve looked at our pay rate as most are on A220 pay, the difference between year 2/3 and 11 pay is only like 10 to 20 bucks an hour so at this point it doesn’t matter what year you’re on for them. They desperately need pilots because we have airplanes coming, They can’t afford to have attrition that’s why they upped the pay. And they know no matter what happens some will leave anyways just to experience legacy flying. Unfortunately the only real way to make progress at this point is if pilots actually leave while A220s are still on their way

 

Contract? Um ok I guess I’ll comment to that. We will get a contract, it just won’t happen like people think it will. Our current pilot group expects riots and pickets, but what they are getting is a mutual understanding between the union and the company that drawing it out to arbitration is the best for the company. In other words, the boring way. The union just can’t come out and say that.

Disclaimer, I’m not involved in the union. This is my best guess.

 

Fixed that for ya

 

This is a realistic view on what will happen. There will always be those who want the Legacy and WB experience, and it doesn’t matter what Breeze does, it will never be enough for that percentage of the pilot group.

When hiring picks up across the industry, I can see the attrition rate significantly climbing. The biggest factor isn’t necessarily the pay, it’s going to be how much control over the schedule and ability to improve QOL. Commuting seems nearly impossible, and that’s going to be the biggest reason many will leave. If they create commutable schedules, long call reserve and some other mechanisms like high-density schedules allowing for longer blocks of time off, then I can see that having more of an impact than anything else.

And that’s just on the A220 side. The EJet, well let’s just say I can see the pilots on that fleet leaving very quickly if schedules don’t improve, especially the newer guys who commute to MSY and aren’t able to get home at all.

 

The new Akron base should help with attrition!

Not sure what it will be actually but supposedly a new base will be announced later this month, couldn’t tell if they were serious or not

 

Any idea if Akron will become the junior base?

 

I'd imagine a couple of senior pilots from the midwest will take it and then it should be wide open