falconkidding

Or blame the company for dragging their feet on contract negotiations. XJT rushed to sign a deal so we could get sold to manair/ual with the idea that we'd work out the fine stuff later. Company literally was like what letter 2... I never even heard of it... Then wouldn't even meet about it for months and it wasn't until summer 19 when recruiting fell off that they actually realized he we're gonna have to do something to get guys here and started working on something fall of 19. We had almost 300 qualified 175 people our CCF never fell below goal, and we never heard from the company about sick calls. No email from the chiefs etc.

We lost the 175 cause from a mgmt perspective it made sense. TSA was imploding we could absorb TSA and C5 who could barely staff 35 of 60 promised 145s and become a near200 aircraft fleet (straight from the MEC email about the agreement in principle right before covid). Short sighted from xjt mgmt but then they are literally just UAL instruments "mutually agreed shutdown".

BRJPilot

The "plan" before COVID was to merge C5 and TSA and have them do all of the E145 flying for United. XJT would have been strictly a 175 carrier at that point. Several things happened in rapid order, even before COVID , that stopped all of that from happening. First, a deal couldn't be worked out to merge TSA and C5. Right around the same time frame, XJT was having difficulty staffing the 175s. There were enough pilots to fly the aircraft, but the captains flying the 175 were for the the most part the very senior ones at the company. They all had a ton of sick time that they weren't going to be paid for when they retired, so they decided to use it, instead of lose it. On some days, the CA sick call rate was around 40%. It was a relatively small group of people who did this, but the effects were noticed. Many of the flights were covered by 145s, so the completion factor didn't suffer, but United did notice that many of the 175s were parked and not flying. Around January 2020 a decision was made to remove the 175s from XJT and the consolation for XJT was to get back the 145s that were being flown by TSA. Those 145s were previously flown by XJT before the CAL/UAL merger by the way. Same situation for the 30 or so that C5 was flying. Both C5 and TSA were having extreme difficulty hiring and retaining qualified CAs, hence the crazy DEC bonuses they were paying. Anyway, several in the XJT ALPA group were not happy about the 175 loss and one was so vocal that they either recalled him or forced him to resign. He was also threatened with a lawsuit for violating his NDA, but the cat was out of the bag. The letter 2 negotiations had been stalled by the company up until that point. Almost magically, the company and ALPA now had a common goal to staff the airline properly and a deal was hammered out in relative short order. XJT offered those crazy DEC bonuses that others had previously been using and the ex-TSA pilot group was going too get a pretty decent deal to come over. A tentative agreement was reached and announced that met almost all of the letter 2 goals. Many in the team were already in DC to sign the new contract when the word went out to put everything on hold because of COVID. In the months that followed, United realized that they didn't need the regional feed size that they currently had. It's another story about how it all went down, but right now C5 has all of the XJT/TSA airframes, not just some of them. How many will actually be flown is still being determined, but anything not needing heavy maintenance in the near term is being readied. And that includes LRs along with the XRs. That's a LOT of 145s. C5 is recruiting and training pilots, flight attendants, maintenance, etc to fly a large number of those aircraft, probably a majority of them! How long that will last is anyone's guess, but without a change in scope, the 145s aren't going anywhere that soon!

jacburn

Going back to my previous statements about going home on the weekends, how many scheduled days off do you have each week during training? And since class ends at 5:30 and the last bank of flights out of IAD is at 5-6PM, what is the possibility of making it home and back for that 1 day off?

Not picking on WhatsV1 at all. I just know that he can give an accurate account since he is in class and I want to make sure everyone is aware that we are pushing pilots through our system with very little days off right now. If you can't afford to be gone and have family issues right now, please stay home and take care of them. You won't need CASS or KCM until after training.

climb150

Just for the record, there was never a plan to merge C5 with anyone. Not Expressjet, TSA or anyone else.

On another note, C5 was having no trouble recruiting people, it was retention that was the problem. We were losing Capts to JetBlue and United. We were even losing low time FOs to Allegiant/Frontier and even some ACMIs.

Mundergun

I agree with jacburn.
I’m currently in training at C5 and you have very little time off with long days. It’s better to just stay where you’re at and focus on completing training. Also, if you do get a good chunk of time off like I did over the holidays you get positive space to and from home.

WhatsV1

Sundays are off days and thats it, making it home probably isnt in the cards right now. I have an experienced class so if one of them went home during a few day break(if and when we get one), I wouldnt see it hurting them really. However, its somewhat controlled chaos to run through this and get us to the line. Not one person will complain though, we are all happy to be here, have a job and be in this position with C5. All the C5 people in the building have been great and instructors will meet with your class after the long day to help answer any questions.

GoodVis

Any advice for a new hire starting in a couple weeks?

jacburn

Study the packet that was given to you. Know the limitations and memory items before you get to class. Plan on long days in class and "after hours" studying and chat at the hotel.

pangolin

Make everything a flow. This aids storage and recall. Engages multiple senses.

RoyerYetlink

the packet given is inaccurate. The QRC (memory items) has changed several times since the beginning of the year. The manuals have more limitations now that the LRs are coming. Just a heads up.