New Flow Realities
#91
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Dec 2015
Posts: 687
This happened a month of 2 ago, its the partner group that ordered 430. Around 130 are slated for frontier, while the rest go to other airlines under that group. Still a big number for Frontier, but not 430 big.
#94
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jul 2017
Posts: 159
Some things to consider regarding the flow...
1) Even taking an as yet unknown event into account (major war, major economic troubles etc) the facts are that mainline AA has massive retirement gaps to fill and it isn’t even clear yet how they are going to accomplish this by the early/mid 2020’s. Even if they decide to park some planes, chances are they wouldn’t have much of a need to furlough because of retirements. Any hiccups in these regards won’t really affect time to flow by any drastic amount in my opinion.
2) There will be massive amounts of turnover and attrition going forward in addition to those above you who are flowing. We haven’t even really begun seeing the real wave of retirements just yet and things are already changing rapidly (mostly for the better) in the regional industry. The flood gates will be wide open at the legacies within the next couple years. Having a 4 year degree might not even matter that much to them as everyone is in a race to hire pilots (don’t quote me on the degree part it’s just a hunch I have looking at the numbers). And this doesn’t even include any potential expansion plans at the legacies. And let’s not forget FedEx, UPS, Southwest (who recently revised UP their need for pilots due to early retirements), the LCCs who have a ton of expansion plans etc. And speaking
I’m actually not entirely sure what will end up happening in these regards. The president of the WO I worked at has said that AA looked into absorbing the WOs a couple of years back but that, “it didn’t make sense financially”. Well that was a long while back (by airline industry standards) and much has already changed since then. There is in fact a financial tipping point to where it makes more sense bringing the WO feed in-house. We aren’t there yet, but in 2-3 years who knows? If you would have told me 2-3 years ago that regionals would be looking at rates like what Endeavor is enjoying I would have laughed at you. But it’s the new reality for them and likely will be for the WOs by mid to late 2018.
Some other relatively minor things to think about if you are considering a WO for the flow:
1) Legislative changes that may have an effect on the retirement age. I personally think that there will be an increased retirement
*SNIP FOR BREVITY*
1) Even taking an as yet unknown event into account (major war, major economic troubles etc) the facts are that mainline AA has massive retirement gaps to fill and it isn’t even clear yet how they are going to accomplish this by the early/mid 2020’s. Even if they decide to park some planes, chances are they wouldn’t have much of a need to furlough because of retirements. Any hiccups in these regards won’t really affect time to flow by any drastic amount in my opinion.
2) There will be massive amounts of turnover and attrition going forward in addition to those above you who are flowing. We haven’t even really begun seeing the real wave of retirements just yet and things are already changing rapidly (mostly for the better) in the regional industry. The flood gates will be wide open at the legacies within the next couple years. Having a 4 year degree might not even matter that much to them as everyone is in a race to hire pilots (don’t quote me on the degree part it’s just a hunch I have looking at the numbers). And this doesn’t even include any potential expansion plans at the legacies. And let’s not forget FedEx, UPS, Southwest (who recently revised UP their need for pilots due to early retirements), the LCCs who have a ton of expansion plans etc. And speaking
I’m actually not entirely sure what will end up happening in these regards. The president of the WO I worked at has said that AA looked into absorbing the WOs a couple of years back but that, “it didn’t make sense financially”. Well that was a long while back (by airline industry standards) and much has already changed since then. There is in fact a financial tipping point to where it makes more sense bringing the WO feed in-house. We aren’t there yet, but in 2-3 years who knows? If you would have told me 2-3 years ago that regionals would be looking at rates like what Endeavor is enjoying I would have laughed at you. But it’s the new reality for them and likely will be for the WOs by mid to late 2018.
Some other relatively minor things to think about if you are considering a WO for the flow:
1) Legislative changes that may have an effect on the retirement age. I personally think that there will be an increased retirement
*SNIP FOR BREVITY*
#95
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Nov 2013
Posts: 854
A December union email said that year-to-date attrition outside of the flow was 123.
#96
2300/(263+123) = 6 years YMMV
Currently flowing 12 year pilots, very few hired in the next few years after them. It will zip down to close to that (7-8 years) by next year sometime, after the Protected Pilots have flowed.
(It wasn’t that long ago some of the 824 pilots that flowed had been on property for 25 years. Now at 12. Just not that many hired during the dry years.)
#98
Now grind into your thinking will attrition outside of flow stay the same or increase as hiring ramps up? (Be objective in your answering this question.) Again YMMV.
If you think attrition outside of flows will stay the same: 2300/((15x11)+123) = 8 years
If pilots on property continue to grow at 200 a year and there is no increase in flow, it will be about 30 years. I don’t think that is a realistic number.
Last edited by TransWorld; 01-09-2018 at 05:58 PM.
#100
If there is someone who leaves outside of flow, doesn’t that improve a new hires’ time at which they will flow? Their seniority number goes up that much, assuming most are CA coming off the top. Granted, when they get enough seniority to be close to flow, fewer ahead of them will leave outside of flow. That might be the last year or so.
How would you suggest flow time is calculated? It is forecasting so is inexact. I would like to see what your calculation looks like.
How would you suggest flow time is calculated? It is forecasting so is inexact. I would like to see what your calculation looks like.
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