ORDinary

Yeah, but the first 5 or so months of the year we were flowing under the 824 agreement, which had metering at 30. Don't look to past performance to try to estimate future flow. Look at the contractual minimums.

TransWorld

Okay, contractual minimums at 15 pilots and 11 months would be 165 flow per year. With 2300 pilots, 2300 / 165 = 14 years.

Yet the union says expect 9 years for flow.

Appears that they are not using your rule of just contractual minimums. What am I missing?

Chicken Little

We seem to be making a very simple formula quite complicated.
1) ~150-350 Pilots will remain at ENY by passing on the flow.
2) Protected Pilots Flow at 50% of AA Classes meter-able to 25 per month. (~725 Pilots)
3) PP to DOS Group is 35% of AA Classes meter-able to 15 per month. (~150 Pilots)
4) The last group is 25% of AA Classes PER YEAR meter-able to 5+((seniority list - 480)/125)*12 or roughly 180 pilots per year with a pilot group of 2300. (~1300 Pilots)

BTW... Group 4 in this case is the supporting evidence for an increased flow rate with an increasing pilot group size. It makes no difference for the PP and DOS guys, but the last group has an increased interest in a growing pilot group.

A Pilot hired today is realistically (Assuming Metering and 11 months of flow per year, minus 10% per year attrition/retirement) looking at...
Group 1: Adds 0 (Flow) Months (Retirement/Attrition Does not matter here)
Group 2: Adds 20 (Flow) Months (Retirement/Attrition- Roughly 75 per year)
Group 3: Adds 9 (Flow) Months (Retirement/Attrition- Roughly 10 per Year)
Group 4: Adds 5.5 YEARS!!! (Retirement/Attrition- Roughly 107 per year)

The Grand Total... 8.5 Years to flow!!!

If you joined Envoy purely for the flow, those are the numbers with some big assumptions in there. If you joined for any other reason (commutability, pay, benefits, etc) then quit worrying about the flow and start worrying about you pay/benefits over the next 8.5 years.

8.5 years of pay at our current rates versus 8.5 years of pay at the rate negotiated by EDV is worth far more than having some flow date that may or may not move. Your flow will come, now lets focus on reserve rules, compensation rates, integration of bonuses into pay rates, and things that will actually matter over the next 8.5 years. Our reserve system sucks, and yet we spend all of our time and effort talking about flow. Focus on the things that matter.

ORDinary

15 is not the contractual minimum. I think what you are missing is actually reading the contract. Have you tried that yet?

TransWorld

Chicken Little has done a much more detailed and thorough calculation. (Thank you.) It arrives at a 8.5 years flow assuming a 10% retirement/attrition. That is close to the 6 - 8 years my crystal ball sees. The two big unknowns are what the actual retirement/attrition rate is (I think it might be a bit more, shortening the flow time — the regional world will change radically over the next few years) and if there are any changes in contractual flows (more unlikely).

I believe the statement (if I understand it correctly) of just considering contractual flow number and nothing else is overly conservative. No matter how one arrives at it, there will be a significant number of retirements/attrition/etc higher up the seniority.

ORDinary - Did Chicken Little (and stated here in APC on the Envoy page) correctly represent your understanding of the contract?

AZPilotMike

This is what I meant, I should have been more clear. I believe they also took less in October or November. Either way it shows that they can and will go below the number.

ORDinary

Yeah, I think so, though I haven't looked up how many pilots are in each group, which might make a difference in the numbers. Also AA hasn't been able to avoid having training backlogs every 6 months or so. It seems like most of the backlogs so far have been merger related, but retirements are going to increase every year for the next 7 years or so. Every retirement is from the top, and generates quite a few training cycles as everyone moves up. It is hard to imagine them being able to keep up with training every month for years in a row. Training delays just in the last year have delayed everyone 2 months.

TransWorld

AA will have to expand the Schoolhouse capacity, both new hires and all the upgrades. Indeed all the majors will have to do that. We all agree. Even the management at the majors (as hard as it may be to be believed by some) would agree.

AZPilotMike

I have heard this very thing discussed several times while jumpseating on mainline. Even they know how crappy the schoolhouse is at getting through Training inefficiencies. It’s going to be ugly as more and more retire. I’m not sure where the bottleneck is but I would assume sims like every other airline. That and just inefficient scheduling.

GodIsGood

Does anyone have any idea when they are going to select the next group of flows?