Im waiting for the surprise all 145 class and people quitting

Yet another even smaller class.

that day will come and it will be rough for a lot of people

Why the small class if a bunch of people are waiting after “orientation”? Is it because the sims are backed up?


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Every aspect of training is backed up, we're losing check airmen at an unsustainable pace.

At this point how long does training take? Say from the one day orientation till actually starting IOE on the line? Months or weeks off 'waiting' included. Is reserve still like 6 months to a year as well?

Are they paying you training pay after the one day orientation? Are you getting equipment assigned in orientation or like normal after first day of official class

Do they not realize half of them will leave for Spirit in a year?

They pay the 64 hours guaranteed minimum starting the day you attend orientation.

You choose equipment and base the first day of indoc.

My old ATP-CTP sim partner had orientation on the 18th of February and has a class date on April 18th. I went to orientation on March 10th and still haven't heard anything back. At this rate, I'm expecting the end of May for my class date.

I was interviewed in October and orientation was mid December and Indoc was end of February and we can came back end of march , incredibly long waiting times but I’ve seen it’s very slightly getting better . Still , right now I’m doing CPTs and been waiting almost 6 months.

So assuming you don't have to do CTP, we're talking a good 4 - 5 months after the 'orientation', at least, before you touch an airplane.

You don’t get to “touch an airplane” at any airline with less than two and a half months or so of training.

Yeah 2.5 months is to be expected before starting IOE, then by the time you finish IOE and get released you're at about three. That's normal, at least in the years leading up to 2020 at most places. But if people are waiting two plus months for just for a class and sims are backed up, it seems like people will be pushing a good four months minimum before even starting IOE.

I have not and the other 6 I have contact with have not received theirs. I am suspect of 4/18 now.

Which orientation date were you? How many in class on 4/4?

It is the industry norm right now, including the majors. The alternative is to not start until the company is ready to push you all the way through. Enjoy the paid time off.

Whining about paid time off won't make you many friends in the crew room just fyi. Everyone on the line is getting worked to the bone and I'd gladly trade my 11 d/o schedule for what you're doing.

Travel benefits kick in after orientation, utilize them. Head abroad and explore.

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People in the Feb orientation class were scheduled for the 3/7, 3/21, 4/4, and 4/18 classes. I'm not sure if there are more left but I think that covers everyone from February.

My guess is that the March orientation will get 5/2, 5/16, and 5/30.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A shrinking airline is never a good thing. AA may want to operate the planes, but a smaller airline means less significance. Fewer aircraft means fewer flights and hours and crappier flight files. Schedules will NOT get better. The more puzzle pieces (planes, pilots, hours and destinations) means more ways to put them together which helps optimize things. So less of all those things means things gets worse. You may think that the 175 will maintain its status quo, but I can assure you that those 145 pieces still help the overall picture. As I stated earlier, there are only three 175s on order and few if any more 170s to be had. AAG would much rather give the flying to the likes of SKW and RPA that have money to buy their own aircraft.

If you already have the time for upgrade, then you will be going to ORD as a 145 captain. 145 in ORD will be the most junior captain until those planes go away completely. While the CRJ was still in play and dying a very slow and painful death, it was the bane of those stuck on it.

If you really want to avoid that, you better be prepared to sit out as long as it takes for the last 145 to go away from Envoy and that will indeed leave this place worse off than it is.

Well, there goes that idea if that's how it would play out. lol.

Makes sense what you're saying though, even with keeping the 175, Envoy would just end up doing more of the low credit 145 flying with the 175, and mainline would take more of the longer high credit flying.

The other elephant in the room is if Envoy were to shrink, there is nothing to say that it would keep MIA as a base. NY flying came and went. It lasted as a base for what, four years this time around?

There are CURRENTLY rumors of RPA taking back the MIA flying. Can’t say that they are or aren’t accurate, for right now, but if Envoy lost the equivalent of all the 145 flying, I wouldn’t at all be surprised to lose MIA.

AAG likes to play shell games with its flying, which is why it keeps several WOs as well as contract regionals around.

If Envoy lost MIA as a base again, it would lose appeal for a large demographic of people, which would further hamper recruiting.

As I said, a shrinking airline is NEVER a good thing. Ask the guys at Compas, TSA and Express Jet.

You'll start seeing lines with 12-13 days off, maybe even 14. But then they bring you down to 11 with carry over. Don't want carry over? Enjoy your 4 on 2 off schedule. The lines have been miserable for at least the last year.

What was the issue with RPA losing the MIA flying back to Envoy? IIRC it was something about their planes and being able to fly over water? Is RPA even able to handle more flying anyway, seems like every regional is losing pilots at rate greater than it can replace them.

Initially Envoy was given a choice between Canadian flying and Caribbean and chose Canada. There was an initial reluctance to have the Envoy 175s EOW certified. It was a dollar consideration, both the initial act and continued cost of equipping and maintaining the life vests as well as the slight weight penalty. The Envoy planes are nearly all EOW equipped after initially just doing 20. I don’t think the 170s have the EOW equipment, but those planes were intended to fly out of ORD. The move of RPA out of MIA was just another shell game of regional flying by AAG. RPA’s presence has increased at ORD and in the NE. Envoy lost NY and was beefed up in MIA.

You are right, nobody can really afford to take on MORE flying. It will be a matter of who shrinks the least and where their flying remains.

But as I said, as things shrink, you can expect to see changes. It’s my bet that closing MIA as an Envoy base would be likely if it were to lose all the 145s without a considerable amount of 170/175s to replace them and their flying. While that has always been the desire, a significant number of additional 175s isn’t something that appears to be happening anytime soon.

So whats the deal with the 170s? They are looking all over the world for 2nd and 3rd hand planes apparently. Is this a being cheap issue or does Embraer not produce the 170 anymore?

Embraer does not still build the 170. There were only about 190 of them built all together. Republic is the largest single operator of them, as I understand, mostly flying them on the Delta contract. I think AeroMexico was the next largest operator with 13. Envoy was supposed to get those, but they turned out to be complete trash and ended up with one. They did get the six from BA CitiFlyer. That only leaves operators with one or two or three planes a piece. Hard to build any kind of fleet size that way.

I’m fairly certain if AAG went to Embraer and told them they wanted 100 170s, that Embraer would build them. The problem is AAG doesn’t want to buy them. 170s or 175s. That’s why RPA and SKW are getting flying, because THEY are buying the planes. That is why Envoy will continue to get the leftover flying with all the inefficiency that it contains.

I don’t know all the ins and outs of the American scope clause. There may be room for more large RJs under the scope clause, but the 170 counts as a small RJ under scope so is a direct replacement for the 145.

Man. You sound like me 3 years ago. All full of optimism.

That will die soon. You'll see that the stuff RW/RN told you guys in your orientation is all lies, such as the 3 new sims. When I started, it was "LAX base is a done deal" and other gems like that.

He went hard on that Kool Aid man