Remember, cr700 was the guy who told everyone to "count on" 40/month flowing last year. He just makes things up and posts it as truth.

cr700 = SP

I am close to flowing. I have watched ALPA's estimate for my flow constantly for the last few years. It never accounted for attrition, and yet it always got worse--my actual flow date is later than any single estimate since they first began maintaining that spreadsheet.

The reason for the delays are AA training/hiring slowdowns, which have occurred regularly over the past few years. It seems possible or even likely that AA will iron out the kinks, since they need to do so much hiring the next ten years, and that perhaps training delays will shrink. Or not.

Attrition may pick up, but remember that it is only attrition above you that matters for flow. The longer you are here, the higher percentage of the attrition is from pilots junior to you, especially since (in general) people who are getting closer to flowing tend to give up trying to leave. This turns attrition 'estimates' into 'wild guesses.'

Lastly, in the past the ALPA spreadsheet always included a full month of flows every December. AA hasn't had a class start in December in any of the recent years of hiring. Over the years those Decembers add up. Maybe they add up to attrition that is senior to you, and the ALPA estimate ends up pretty close.

I think most new guys are being way too optimistic about the flow time reducing. Anyone remember flying with guys from the lost decade? They were supposed to flow in the early 2000s but due to 9/11 and the age 65 rule their flow time was drastically increased. Some of them waited 16+ years to flow and if you told them when they were hired that they would flow in 16 years they would have laughed at you.

Stuff happens fellas. What if retirement got pushed back to 67? That's a very real thing that may happen in the future. What about a war or another economic collapse? I haven't seen a single person take these things into account on here. People being too optimistic when historical trends tell us otherwise. I see too much on here of guys with the same mentality that our pre-9/11 guys had when they were hired. I would not bet on ALPA's estimates to change in favor of a reduced flow time.

Flow to AA
 

I don’t think it accounts for any attrition. Why? Because attrition can have a varying effect to a single pilot in a group of pilots. 300 leaving to OAL in a year might only have a positive effect for half of the group or maybe more or maybe less. It all depends on where those jumpers were on the seniority list. To just say 300 leave will grant you 300 sooner regardless isn’t correct math and thus left out of the equation.

Edit: the only variables that are included is solid information like contract (yeah I know, i chuckled too), retirements, no-flow elections. I’m not sure if it also includes AA Christmas break or not though.


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It does not. Which is part of the reason for it being a bit of an optimistic projection. Those that think flow will be better than the ALPA projection aren't paying attention to how it has been working.

Truth is no one knows. Past performance is rarely an indicator of future performance in the airline industry. I think its safe to say what is happening now with flow/attrition will not be the case 3+ years from now. For better or worse.

OK, actually, I agree with this. I DO think attrition will be higher in the future than what it's been in the past. HOWEVER, historically, ALPA's projections are optimistic and several posters in this thread are trying to say they are actually overly conservative. Neither I, nor do those others know exactly how much 'better' attrition will be. There simply is no way to know that. But we DO know that ALPA's projections tend to be more optimistic than reality.

My guess is that IF, and that's such a big IF I can't capitalize it enough, attrition is big enough to make ALPA's projections shrink from their current stance, I doubt it's by much.

Folks, attrition to other airlines is currently virtually non-existent. (Attrition was VERY HIGH 4-5 years ago with all the concessions/doom and gloom/shutdown threats, etc)
It's everyone's best interest to regularly update applications to all the majors and try to get out at the first chance possible. Don't wait for the flow, because it will disappoint you.

I tend to follow this line of thinking. Even if I am wrong it still protects me.