chihuahua

No whining. Just trying to figure out what the current situation would be for a new hire, since this seems to be changing rapidly everywhere. Obviously two or three months paid time off is great, but the problem is with what comes after that. With an 11 day off schedule are you reserve or a line holder? On the 175 or 145? Does anyone in any base holding a line get more than 11 days off at this point, as was typical in the past, or are even the senior guys getting trash schedules? I get the 145 schedules, if that's what you fly, are never going to get better, but I was hoping that eventually on the 175 things would get better. And yes, I know going to class is like playing Russian Roulette where one class is going to end up with 145s at some point even though they're trying to focus on hiring for the 175.

pitchattitude

Reserve is 11 days off, for all aircraft.

11 days off is the contractual minimum days off for line holders as well, again, for both aircraft. Once you get a line, timeframe unknown, based on base and aircraft and variable, expect 3-6 months, you can expect to get a line that only has 11 days off. Once you get some seniority, you will start seeing lines with 12 and then 13 days off a month.

For May the average days off across both fleets and all three bases is about 13 days. The majority of lines have 11 or 12 days off. Fewer lines have 13-14 days off, with up to 18 off. You SHOULD never see those lines with more than 14 days off. There are only a handful of those 18 day off lines in the system, meaning you have to be the most senior to get them. If you’re an FO, you should be upgrading long before you get that seniority, which means starting over at the bottom again as a captain with reserve and 11 day off lines. Hopefully you will get out before you have seniority to hold a 13-14 day off line as a captain.

chihuahua

Ok, so not great overall, but if I could hold MIA on the first base bid after whatever base the initial assignment in class would be, that also wouldn't be terrible either since living in base would mean no commute. It seems like airlines are at least very slowly coming around to accept the reality that they are operating beyond their means and need to cut back and allow staffing to catch up. Not to mention the high oil prices and price inflation are going to start negatively affecting demand, and hopefully lead to more 50 seaters going away for good. For me, QOL, or at least QOL defined as being able to hold MIA or anything in South Florida, and drive to work is the most important. More important than upgrading or making every last dollar. I'd just be getting back to 121 after taking the covid period away from 121, and have non-aviation obligations I want to maintain. Being able to drive to work, with so few days off, even as a line holder, would make all the difference for me. I guess I'll keep watching to see how things are going before throwing applications in. Hope things stabilize a bit and they don't start doing forced upgrades again. Thanks for the info either way.

pitchattitude

The bid that just closed a few days ago, surprisingly, did not see any forced upgrades. Probably due to a lack back filling vacancies left from those that already had a current or awarded but not yet in training Captain status, which meant overall the net number of upgrades was reduced. Just glancing at the prelim, it looks like about 30 or so.

That means the company is shrinking even faster than most want to admit. But forced upgrades WILL be coming. There are those that are holding out to try to get something more favorable, which just kicks the can down the seniority list.

If you come to Envoy with any qualifying time, you will be a prime candidate for forced upgrade. You have the time, but not the seniority. Consider your choice wisely.

Chato

no kiddin, going from a projected 233 lines for May down to 189. It’s happening very fast

pitchattitude

The company not choosing to back fill those 30 or so vacancies is telling. They probably recognized (surpassingly) that they don’t have the capability to train that many before the next bid and don’t want to have to pay more people captain pay while waiting for training.

chihuahua

Ok fair point. Completely forgot about the fact that the forced upgrades would start from the bottom and go up if they did happen. And I imagine that forced upgrades could be forced onto the 145 as well, even if you get the 175 in initial/new hire, since the senior 145 guys that have been locked into it and take an upgrade will probably want to go to the 175.

pitchattitude

Your only hope at that point, especially since you want MIA, is that the 145s die quickly. While many (most?) would like that, there are only three 175s on order for later this year and no real source of 170s to replace them. That would lead to an even bigger and quicker shrinking of the ‘Voy.

Depending on how much time you have towards upgrade, you could try to sandbag on reserve and NOT fly, but with a staffing shortage you are still likely to accumulate more time than would work for avoiding the forced upgrade. And being on reserve when short staffed, even living in base, is a miserable existence.

harrypotter

It is getting faster for the newer people and it will get much better once they have caught up all the orientation/indoc classes of 60/45 people. They have made the classes smaller on purpose, to decrease wait times and get us flying asap (which is what we all want!).

My experience so far:
Feb 16th orientation (#6 from top of seniority OF THAT CLASS)
March 7th indoc ( #3 from the bottom of 15 of that INDOC CLASS)
people ahead of me have already been called back to the next part of training and MY specific Finish date is JUNE.
Which is still within that 3-4 months training timeframe that all the other regionals (that i have talked to friends at) listed below.

I tell you this to give you insight (& hopefully less not more worry) because we are all so type A we hate feeling blind to our future XD. But i wouldnt stress about it taking along time, it is across the industry, and we are getting paid nicely, 65hr monthly guaruntee starting from orientation date plus perdiem the whole time until IOE complete. We should just use this awesome extra time to study more and not feel so crammed with studying so much so fast. and travel! Use Flight Deck Jumpseat privileges! its AWESOME!

Mesa: finished ATP/CTP waiting for sims 6 months on E175, less wait on CRJ200
Skywest: 3-4 month training (from Indoc start) including 4 week delay from ATP check to IOE trip, only got .8 sitting reserve for the first WHOLE MONTH after IOE completed
Republic: 3-4 month training (from Indoc start)

like others have said, we are loosing sim and check instructors/captains (ones who can do IOE trips) and amount of sims avail are all causing bottle necks, BUT no forced upgrades yet is good.

ALSO Envoy itself is on track to RECEIVE 3 MORE E175 SIMS by the end of this year so that will also ramp things up. Not to mention the fact that at envoy they have a training program called Advanced Qualification Program, which means they basically wrote 8 ATP checkride scenarios and the DPE choses one and thats what we fly, so we will know exactly what to expect for our ATP check.

So far management/training are nice and they just are covering their bases by having a large backfill of pilots ready to start training at any time. they usually give you a few days notice for the next part of training but you can request up to 7, youll get pushed back though to the next class. People cant come for several reasons, sick, covid, etc and thats fine with them but they like having the large amounts waiting incase for those reasons. Of course COVID is dying down and that was throwing like a quarter of the classes out at a time for mandatory 2 week quarantine. So maybe thats another reason why classes are smaller.

chihuahua

No sandbagging for me, I have over 1000 121.

If the 145s die, wouldn't that help the staffing situation greatly in what would then be a significantly smaller airline? That's kinda what I was hoping. All resources get put towards the 175, and assuming our extremely stressed monopoly money economy doesn't collapse soon, the next few years would continue with the hiring and movement and therefore bring good seniority and a chance of eventually holding an MIA CA spot with a decent schedule and then on from there. That's the trajectory that everyone was kind of on before 2020. I assume AA will still want to operate those 175s for some time.