Excargodog

As a newbie starting with no 121 time, I'm going into a situation where Compass is short in FOs because of their hiring freeze, so short that they are starting to look at right seat captains and giving new hires credit for prior 121 time, both because they desperately need FOs and because that FO shortage ought to gradually morph into a captain shortage as they continue to lose captains and start to run out of FOs who have 1000 hours of 121 time to upgrade to captain. That sound about right?

If so, it would seem that a new hire starting training today would sort of have the best of both worlds, if their goal were to fly in the majors. They'll have little reserve time before they are holding a line, and be flying their butts off both on reserve and as a line holder. So they ought to gain the 1000 house they need rather quickly and Compass will upgrade them quickly because by then that's where the shortage from the ill-advised hiring freeze leaves the company.

Of course by that time anyone the company did lure in with prior 121 time may have already upgraded, but because they have a more recent date of hire, they will be junior to those FOs hired today, so these quasi-street captains soak up the reserve flying (if any) and the new captains may well be flying lines immediately after upgrading. Or am I missing something here?

And then, since by that time the FO shortage will have become a captain shortage, they will again be flying their tails off and accumulating the 1000 hours of TPIC that seems to be the door opener for selection by some of the majors. Or again, am I missing something?

If I'm viewing this correctly, this would seem about as speedy an opportunity to get the regional time you need to be competitive applying to the majors as you are going to get.

poorflyer

If I had the regional airline crystal ball I'd tell you that you're correct. The problem is, it doesn't exist. The threat right now is that if we can't hire enough FOs they aren't going to upgrade any. We're throttling upgrades to 10 a month due to FO staffing. Right now upgrades are in seniority order are are slightly above 24 months which is way over what it takes to gain 1000 hours and will only go down if we can hire FOs. If we can stay fat on FOs it will be a good place to be, since our captains are leaving at a high rate proportional to our small size. However, another threat is the flying contracts expiring in a little over 3 years. I don't need to mention the devastion that a lose of flying brings. Our strengths are that we are a small group of pilots who want to leave, even if that means a ULCC. So when given the chance, seniority flows pretty fast. Our opportunities include holding onto our flying and maybe gaining more reputation with delta to gain career progression but that's a stretch. Our weaknesses are definitely management, but that goes for most regionals.

ConfCodeCOOL

Contracts are up for renewal at all carriers at all times. Who knows what this industry will look like in 3 years, but if we continue to lead the pack for performance, we'll be safe. I will say OO certainly has more diversity so if they lose a little, they aren't impacted as much as say we would be. However if we get a third codeshare partner, we'll be in pretty good shape. As for the throttled CA upgrade, yes that's a thing and that's why it's in the LOA that until we are properly staffed they will be able to right seat captain because I think as soon as that LOA is signed you'll see them upgrade a ton - currently they have to be very careful because we don't want to be short CA but they can easily put us too short FO if they upgrade too many at once. Anyway, the right seat captain scenario will fix that...

Baradium

I've seen this a couple times here... but what metrics are you leading in? For both carriers?

ConfCodeCOOL

For January, we beat Endeavor, OO, Gojet, Expressjet and even mainline Delta out for D0 as well as D30. Our B0 was ahead of every other regional. Our A14 was higher than every other regional including mainline.
Similar metrics on the American side. Closing the MSP base and moving out west has greatly tackled the performance issue, and the LAX terminal move.

Excargodog

I would agree, but because of it I don’t understand why it would be advisable to throttle back upgrades. That threatens to turn an FO shortage that CAN be solved by right-seating captains into a captain shortage that CANNOT be solved by left seating FOs.

That’s just basic demographics. As that 7-8 month period of no-hires works its way through the system the only likely way to avoid a captain shortage is to upgrade on the usual schedule and hope that the high utilization rate of new hire FOs will get enough of them 1000 hours before the coming captain shortage becomes the limiting factor. Nor do I think that hiring people with prior 121 time will solve this problem, especially if you only grant half credit for pay per year of 121 time.

It would seem to me that a street captain, or even someone simply upgrading out of priority sequence, is going to have a tough enough time watching FOs senior to him make captain above him/her and will be holding a junior line (or reserve) longer than anyone else. It ain’t that great a deal under the best of circumstances.

How many FOs Compass has currently ought to be irrelevant. That’s a situation that is survivable, albeit costly. A captain shortage potentially shuts the place down.

Compass ought to be upgrading captains to offset attrition, regardless of FO numbers. That’s the price you need to pay for the mistake you made with the hiring freeze. Freezing (or throttling back) captain upgrades only compounds that, at least unless you have a healthy surplus of upgradable FOs. Doesn’t sound like that’s the case.

Poser765

Let's keep in mind... There is a LOT of big things that have to take place before captains are flying in the right seat. BIG things. I wouldn't count on seeing it happen anytime soon.

Excargodog

All the more reason it seems imprudent to throttle back captain upgrades to less than normal attrition

ConfCodeCOOL

They haven't throttled it that hard. We've seen plenty of months of 12-16 captain upgrades, which pretty much matches or exceeds attrition, keep in mind a decent % of our attrition has been FO's leaving, not all certainly, but just because 20-25 leave a month, it's never 20 captains a month... it's always some % of that. Also, classes are starting to be OK. 8 is starting down the bad path of being short captains, but they do have other "levers they can pull" such as raising the floor, TDY's (which we have already seen), etc. The actual footprint for captain upgrade is VERY small and quick, they can get 30 more captains on the line pretty quick (the biggest hold up being waiting for the fed ride), not so compared to FO's. Keep in mind captains already know how to fly the plane and the captain flows are very minimal, it's a few FPTs and sims and a leadership class and boom you are a captain here... IOE is still airplanes being flown and moved around as they are needed, so even though those captains aren't bidders, they're still flying (granted, it takes two captains out of the system as line check airmen are all captains obviously...)
They also historically run fatter on captains for vacations, SLIPs, line check airmen etc, some of that buffer can be run a little bit leaner for a month or two.
I know pilots think they can run the airline better than management, and with this management group that wouldn't be hard but... they aren't entirely braindead outside of that 6 month hiring freeze. That was just hubris and lack of foresight on their part (and every pilot correctly predicted what would happen...). Our gain since we have a new LOA and a bonus that wouldn't exist otherwise.

Excargodog

Lot of very good points. Nonetheless, everyone taking a job at compass has other choices and is betting THEIR CAREERS in aviation on management too to some extent on the successful execution of management, so the "hubris and lack of foresight" so concern that the "hubris and lack of foresight" does not recur seems warranted.

Now while I would concede that indeed the process of captain upgrade is quicker than FO qual, it is quicker ONLY for those already possessing 1000 hours of 121 time, which will not soon be the case for the vast majority of those hired after the freeze. And yes, I'd concede (and even be heartened by) the fact that not everyone leaving to go on to bigger and better things is a captain, I would be greatly surprised if the high time (and hence upgradable) FOs were not over represented in this group. It's just basic queuing theory. The input was disrupted long enough that there will be ripples for a complete cycle - maybe slightly longer. And while those ripples ought indeed to be manageable, they do need to be managed, not left to work themselves out because ofbhubris and lack of foresight.