Every huge class increases flow by 3-5 months. The last large class of 58 has potentially a four month flow range (union projections has new hires at 17/month flow, 58/3 is 3.4 or so, meaning those hires will be in four different flow months). If we keep hiring 70+ per month, that is close to six months between the senior flow and the junior flow. These cause dramatic swings in flow time, and by that math by the spring we could have a 10 year+ flow easily (again, on paper). Two to three more months of huge classes potentially adds yet another year.

Attrition is an unknown variable. Is 25% a realistic number? It's just impossible to tell. I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility, but again, every three months is (as the numbers lie right now) a year in extra flow time, making each year of hiring an extra four years to flow.

If your 25% attrition holds, that's still three years or so of added flow time for every year of hiring done at company projections.

Does envoy currently grow 200 guys a year? How about next year?

We grew 200ish the past six months. The next master seniority list comes online in a couple weeks. Compare current with new to an accurate number.

New seniority list is on jetnet now. From the first class off 2017 to the last, there are 755 people. That blows my mind.

Man if we are so short now that we have to meter How short were we back then? Operational necessity must be a forever increasing bar we are forever behind. Don't recall a lot of cancellations back then for lack of crews.

Apparently we are so short of staffing in LGA that we can’t drop a day, even with the zero time lines that we’re on offer (not all of which were taken).

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 of LCCs, once Spirit, Frontier, and JetBlue get new contracts it will create a whole entire new round of “raising the bar” industry-wide and regionals will be forced to further compete for an ever-dwindling pilot supply.

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 age within the next 2-5 years. There is already a gap for most pilots when it comes to retiring at 65 and claiming Social Security benefits. That gap will only continue to widen in the coming years. That combined with an overall average lifespan increase as American’s live longer due to healthcare advances (2017 not included) AND the shortage of pilots wanting to work at regionals together with the looming massive retirements at mainline and I think raising the retirement age will be a foregone conclusion. The thing to remember about this is that it wouldn’t just affect you at an AA WO regional, but anywhere you’re at in the industry.

2) As time marches on, I believe that the legacy airlines are going to attempt to set up partnerships and more “cradle to grave” pipeline programs. We have already seen the beginnings of this at AA, Delta, and JetBlue and I believe United will likely unveil more programs like this in 2018 (they tend to lag the others in these regards). This will leave some regional airlines, “out in the cold” so to speak. AA and Delta have both said that they want to reduce the number of regional contract carriers flying for them and we are already starting to see the effects of that. I believe we will see more of this over the next couple years. United has already set up preferential hiring programs with certain regionals that it has taken a stake in and I think you will see those regionals continue to grow for United. The regionals I would be cautious of are the Trans State Holdings regionals (GoJet, TSA, and Compass), Mesa etc. I think they stand to lose contracts in the coming years. If you’re choice is between a WO or one of them I think the choice is clear. Which leads me to my next point of consideration...

3) I personally think that the old sage advice of, “pick a regional based on where you live or want to live. DO NOT COMMUTE” is beginning to come to an end to some extent. I realize that many choose a regional based on this. But I think the realities of the legacies beginning to narrow their field of view when it comes to their regional partnerships and the pipeline programs that will be growing in size will certainly serve to make it increasingly difficult to get hired off the street at a legacy if you don’t work for their regional partner. I think the new reality is that pilots should be asking themselves, “What legacy do I want to work for”? “What legacy has the bases, equipment, and flying that I want to do for 20-30 years”? Some will disagree with this but I think it’s becoming more clear that this is where we are all headed. And not to mention the relative ease of commute provided at the AA WOs or even better, the new commuter policy at Endeavor. Contract regionals will never be able to offer incentives like this.

Much will happen in the future that we can not account for right now. Just as much has happened in the recent past that many did not see coming. I think working for an AA WOs is probably one of the best options that a pilot looking to make the leap into the regional world can make right now. And at the very least, look beyond the next 5 years of your career and consider the simple fact that if you work for an AA WO you can still apply off the street and have a decent shot of getting hired almost anywhere else. Pilots at other regionals can not say the same about their chances of getting hired at AA. And if you aren’t at least considering a regional that has some sort of vested partnership or flow/interview program then you are just doing yourself a further disservice. Considering the factors that are relatively quantifiable (flow and attrition) I think that a new hire today can expect to be at mainline in 6-7 years. That’s my “best guess”. Take it for what it is!

Is that 755 hired, or the list grew by 755?

The seniority list, using the first number from the first class of January to the last number of the last class of 2017 of December grew 755.

I just read that Frontier, alone, is planning to buy 430 new airbus aircraft...

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.

For 2017, we know 263 pilots flowed to American.

But, does anyone know how many people quit, fired, retired, died, went to other Airlines, left for any reason giving up their seniority number.

4/12/10 hire and I quit in 2017

Thanks for a well thought out, reasonable post. As a guy looking hard at Envoy as a potential employer, I appreciate your perspective as opposed to some of the hyperventilating I read here.

A December union email said that year-to-date attrition outside of the flow was 123.

Let’s do the math. 263 flow, 123 attrition outside of flow, 2300 pilots on property.

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.)

I didn’t realize that many were going to flow every month after the protected pilots. Do you know something we dont?

The contractual information states flows drops from 25 a month now (which is what the math is based on) with Protected Pilots to 15 a month.

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.

That is not how you calculate our flow.

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.

Not if attrition is happening in the bottom of the list. Training/probie releases, lateral moves for higher pay, short-timers (i.e. mil pilots tagging up while waiting for a major). Attrition outside of flow really stagnates as you get higher up the seniority list. People start to see AA at the end of the tunnel and get lazy.

Of course trainees/probies and short-timers will not move one up in seniority after one comes off probationary. How many of the non-flow attrition are in that group?

My crystal ball says, given all these things, is a 6 - 8 year flow. YMMV

Well what you did was count 2017's flow+attrition and divide it into the whole pilot group. That means you are assuming that 2017's flow+attrition will continue for the next 6 years. Nobody knows exactly what attrition will look like, but assuming that the 824/Protected pilot flow numbers that happened in 2017 will remain in place for the next 6 years doesn't make sense.

Start with the contractual flow minimums, and treat that as best-case scenario for flow. Then add your guess for outside attrition, and there's your estimate. The union has already done that and they got around 9 years for a new hire today.

The union numbers assume no outside attrition but they also assume aa hires 12 months per year and no hiccups. I would assume there will be outside attrition but how much of that is senior to you is all that matters.

Also remember as the pilot group grows they add more flows per month to the group hired after DOS the stated goal is 3000 pilots.

Yes, keep in mind the ALPA spreadsheet assumes AA holds classes in December which historically doesn't happen.

True, but its not likely to get more than 17 per month. We are also limited by 25% of AAs NHs. So about 800ish NHs at AA mean about 17 flows per month at Envoy.

Yeah except they are already not honoring the 25 number due to metering so what makes you think they will honor the 15 a month? Not saying they won’t but hey, they have no problem skirting the boundaries of the contract in this case.

Huh? What are you talking about? The 25 is the metered amount right now and 15 will be the metered amount after the PP group.

The number who flowed was 263 for 2017. At 25 per month, that was equivalent of 10.5 months. What I calculated was 15 pilots at 11 months (there usually is no December class).

The other difference in flow was a class cancelled when the Schoolhouse was backed up with Mad Dog Pilots getting trained for something else. By the time the Protected Pilots are done flowing, all the Mad Dogs will have been retired.

They flowed less than 25 in September (I think that was the month) due to the small class - they went with 50% in that situation. That may have been what he meant.

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.

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?

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.

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

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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