Eight Captain upgrades a month? Do the math.
 

I'm looking on the right hand side of my screen where a Compass ad is flashing. It's saying 18-24 month upgrades to Captain.

OK, the total pilot population at Compass according to APC is currently 663. I imagine there are actually some management pilots above and beyond that and some reservist pilots called up for a tour, but let's look at that 663 and use that for a baseline.

Now I realize that Compass screwed up with the hiring freeze, and they are short on FOs, so let us say that 55% of those 663 are already captains. For simplicity's sake, let us make that 365 Captains and 300 FOs. And since we've already got a class in training and another one booked up, if I were a newbie candidate for Compass I'd be looking at probably another 50 that will be ahead of me on the seniority list before I can seriously expect to get a seniority number.

Now this isn't rocket surgery. Anyone that can be trusted with a weight and balance can do this math.

Now eight upgrades a month is 96 upgrades a year. 350 divided by 96 is 3.64 years, basically three years and eight months for a newbie looking at that ad.

Now I fully realize that there were times in the regionals where a four year upgrade would have been considered totally awesome, but that isn't the case today. Perhaps that's where some of Compass's senior FOs are going, to somewhere they'll at least be made a street captain and can start acquiring TPIC, even if they spend an eternity - or at least a thousand hours TPIC - on reserve. Because, frankly, times have changed, and even senior FOs have options now.

But those new hires have options too, or at least many of them.

Granted, the newbie who can't do long division (or weight and balances) isn't going to be able to figure out that it's not really 18-24 months but rather more like double that, but is that really the guy you want to hire? Seems like that's going to do nothing but drive up your new qual attrition rate, not a good deal for Compass and certainly not a good deal for the guy whose resume is now blighted with a training failure.

Which would leave you with the newbies that woukd sign on KNOWING you were starting out the relationship by lying to them. Man, that doesn't seem like a good deal, no loyalty there either way.

Maybe it's time for management to just man up and admit they screwed the pooch with the hiring freeze and there are GOING to be consequences. Deal with it. If you need retention bonuses to keep your senior FO's or captains from leaving, negotiate for it. If you can't actually expect 18-24 month upgrades, pull the ads.

But starting the relationship with newbies by making promises you have no intention of keeping can only poison the well right at the start. You don't want to do that - trust me on that.

One point. It won't stay eight a month for three and a half years.

There is also FO attrition which reduces time to upgrade.

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I'm sure there is going to be a lot more now.

Absolutely. Will that FO attrition be increased or decreased by slowing the upgrade OPPORTUNITIES of those FOs to upgrade to captain? Is this an effective strategy? Or is it simply going to make those FOs try harder to find a different job that will advance their careers that they can get without Compass TPIC time which apparently many are already doing?

To an extent, this seems like boring a hole in your leaky boat to let the water out. These senior FOs DO HAVE OTHER OPTIONS, even at LCCs and majors. They CERTAINLY have the option to be street captains at any of a number of other regionals. And if you are going to get your butt flown off anyway, why not do it for captain pay?

I think that management knows that it's not a long-term solution. We lose far more than 8 captains/month, so it's definitely not sustainable. However, when you look at who we have on reserve right now, for several days in a row if not weeks at a time, SYSTEMWIDE, not just in one particular base, but in all of them, we have literally 0 FOs on reserve once open time flying is covered. One FO calls out sick? Someone's getting junior manned or a critical pay trip offer is made because there's literally no one to staff it.

In addition, every FO is getting awarded 85+ hour lines each month. That's only happening in SEA on the captain side. LAX and PHX captains are able to (at least the senior ones) get 75 hour lines. And it's been a long time since we've had no captain reserves in LAX. We seem to have about 10 captains on reserve in LAX each day that go unused. To balance out the suck and keep flights going, it'd make sense to have fewer captains coming in than are going out for a bit if we're critically short-staffed on FOs. Thus you see them slowing upgrades a bit so they can have both groups working as much as possible rather than having FOs bear all of the burden. When the new hires in training hit the line faster than we continue losing pilots, that's when we'll have turned the corner (and hopefully that'll come soon). That seems to be the mantra I've heard, and it makes sense to me. (disclaimer, I did not hear the employee call today as I was out flying)

TL;DR The 8 upgrades a month is temporary, not the new normal. Can't upgrade FOs to CA without having new FOs to backfill those positions since planes need both CA and FO to fly.

So we are to assume the brain trust that CREATED this problem with the hiring freeze will lead turn the time to turn the captain spigot back on? And that most all the captain eligible FOs won’t have booked for greener pastures in the interim?

What is there about the history of this boondoggle that gives you such confidence in the wisdom of those people who made these decisions? It seems like the triumph of hope over experience.

To me it seems like they are people who didn’t learn from their first mistake.

Don't forget the Hawaiian flow will alter those numbers a bit

Squirrel!!

The funny thing is AT wasn't even on the phone call to answer questions. I bet he just doesn't even give AF anymore and just does what he wants.

Post of the year. They only are throttling temporarily and it'll resume especially when they get right seat qual captain. But as you said they're short FO, so what are they supposed to do, upgrade them to CA and be even shorter? Yet they can't just not upgrade either. That's why it's 8. It's the minimum that lets them kick the can down the road a bit. But they can CA upgrade fast if they need to, it is a tiny footprint unlike initial new hire FO. If they find themselves a bit short on CA they can literally do 3 classes of 12 in a month and boom, no more shortage.

https://i.imgflip.com/260xe9.jpg

That's all I have to contribute

If that were invariably true, then regionals would not be hiring street captains, like Horizon to name just one, who has junior FOs sitting around not getting consolidation time on their new ratings, while not having enough FOs with 1000 hours of 121 time to upgrade to captain to staff the q400s which are still two-thirds of their fleet.

Hence moving heaven and earth to find hires with prior 121time

So which is it, the upgrade time is too long or there's not enough people with 1000 hrs? Because it can't be both. It's the excargodog paradox!

If they are right and left seat qualified, there’s no problem...you can fly them either seat. So you have an additional CA who can act as FO.

My guess is FOs will upgrade, and find themselves still sitting right seat again, but wearing 4 stripes. They might fly some left seat too, the question is how often.

like mpet said... What do you want them to do? They can only upgrade so many creating a bigger and bigger hole on the fo side. And it does take LOTS of time to get guys through initial.

We need PEOPLE to upgrade more than we need to upgrade to get people. Follow?

the bigger question is when will we see right seat captains. Honestly I'd be surprised if it's before 2019.

Tell that to Horizon and other regionals hiring street captains.

Now you can make fun of me all you want, but I didn't create this problem. Your childlike trust in the people who did to now cope with the problem with simplistic thinking may give you comfort but the issues are just a little more complex than that.

You are assuming, for example, that the rate of senior FOs departing Compass for greener other opportunities is unaffected by the difference in pay they would make as a captain vs a senior FO. Possible, it unlikely.

You are also assuming that potential hires are going to believe in the currently advertised 18-24 month upgrades DESPITE the reduced upgrade rate. Some will of cours, but perhaps not he quality of people you need to reduce the current training delays and attrition.

And yes, eventually queuing and new hires might well actually take care of the problem, assuming another 6-8 months go by and the newbies pass rates can be increased at which point the FO shortage becomes a captain shortage, quite possibly with a dearth of 1000 hour FOs and Compass will be looking for street captains like other regionals.

So rag on me all you want, I didn’t create this problem, Compass management did. And they are trying to get out of a problem if their own creation in the cheap, and I don't think they are going to be successful on the cheap. I think if they don’t change this policy they are headed where Horizon went, farming out their planes and their flying to someone who could adequately staff them.

But if your childish faith in them somehow does prove justified, I’ll be the first to admit I was wrong. Time will tell.

dude, who are you? Do you work for compass? I feel like two weeks ago you were just thinking about coming here... Now it seems like you have it all figured out from the outside. We get it, man, our management did stupid... But what are they suppose to do? You aren't offering any suggestions except "you going to keep putting faith in your management?"

If you want to come work here, (if you don't) then come work here. If you are STILL this hung up on these things, maybe another company would be a better fit.

Wow. For someone just trying to break into the 121 world, you sure are throwing out a lot of insults. What’s your endgame here?

In all honesty, I would be happy if they just came out and said “guys we effed up. Sorry but bear with us.” They can’t and won’t do that and we pay the consequences. Just like the “IOCC transition was great.” In reality, it wasn’t.

Yeah, seriously. Also, none of us put "blind trust" in management, we called them stupid for 6 months while they stopped hiring. We knew this would be the consequence. To their credit they have figured it out and it's certainly amongst the top paying west coast regionals right now with something unique to offer, the quick upgrade. Because of the freeze, it's unlikely that we will run out of 1000 hour guys, but if we do, street captains will attract even more new hire FO's, honestly. Sure, our management team isn't that bright. Neither is the one at OO, or QX...
You don't seem to be able to handle us telling you that no, there's no way the upgrade time at Compass goes up to 4 years. That's insane. You're taking one little piece of information like "they slowed upgrades to 8 a month temporarily for FO staffing" and are trying to interpolate to the way wrong conclusion.

Actually OO management is brilliant. It's our voting populace that lacks IQ.

Also:
https://i.imgflip.com/261b0x.jpg

#onepercent

It’s okay at least y’all got a vote. We were just assigned an agreement, no input from us. And we are unionized.

Pay negotiations have just started here again. I'm not optimistic.

Can't take issue with a single thing you said.

So who are YOU? The board monitor? In charge of who can and cannot express an opinion on a public bulletin board? You been posting here for ...what? Nine years? You a Compass lifer or management or what, that you think you can be the arbiter of who is worthy to post their opinion?

My issue was that I think the Compass management is making a mistake throttling back on captain upgrades. Nor am I the only one with that opinion, as evidenced by others posting on this and another thread. What shade I threw - to the extent I did - was in direct response to statements by others. Others who I did nothing to disparage until they started it.
If they can't take it, maybe they shouldn't dish it out.


Gee, doesn't that sound just a little bit elementary school playground 'gonna take my ball and go home' puerile? Especially since it isn't your playground? Or your ball?


I gave an opinion here. I did not pick any fights with anyone. Anyone who doesn't care to read this or any any of my postings is totally free to ignore them. Anybody that wants to respond to them, even to respectfully rebut them, I'm more than willing to listen and maybe even learn something in the process. Anyone who disrespectfully rebuts them, or turns to personal insults, will likely prove they can lower me to their level of discourse quite quickly.

I never claimed or aspired to sainthood.

Poser765 is the chief pilot, Poser and 'Bro'hawk

😂😂 a jurassic park meme, nice

9 years? Jesus is my account really that old? No, I'm not a lifer. In fact I'm an fo still on probation.

It's like this, friend. You are a broken record. You're telling us nothing new about our leadership team. You're also making assumptions based on faulty bases... Then doubling down on it when that's pointed out to you.

When you showed up, myself, and others, answered your questions. Since then all you've done is put down our company (probably rightly so) and now our pilot group.

Now you are simply becoming high maintenance. A copy of our recent agreement from the union... AS A PDF? Dafuq out of here.

I don't think you want to come to Compass. In fact I'm pretty sure you're probably pretty entrenched at a different carrier and just stirring poo. Either way, I'm done with you.

Board monitor? No, I just try to point out crap in our threads when I see it.

Calling someone "management" is the last resort of someone who has nothing remaining to contribute to the discussion. No worries, I've done it too haha.

Our management does read these forums, and they're pretty good at figuring out who is who. I hope our recruiters can do the same.

p.s. This isn't a public forum. It's owned by whatever company owns APC, and if they don't like your post, they can delete it.

[emoji106][emoji106]


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8 captain upgrade a month = 96 captains in a year :cool:

did the math for you.

How many in a decade?

Sorry, that's too much math...

Do not need to worry about that. In a decade regionals will not look anything like they do today.

A lot of what is regional flying today will be taken over by the majors. There will be only a handful of ‘big’ regionals. That is what my crystal ball is telling me.