Attendance is essentially on a rolling 12 month cycle.

Anybody who thinks they aren’t vindictive and retaliatory is a fool.

Anybody who listens to you about anything is a fool.

The contract provides for self-clearing sick calls under certain circumstances, no hospitalizations etc?

You must self-clear your illness with the Chief Pilots office (as long as not serious/hospitalization/etc). I am just going to guess that if they dug through someone's file to give them a letter, there was something more going on than simply refusing a junior man...

I've never done that. I've gotten HI6 out of the blue that my sick calls were cleared, but I don't think there's anything in the contract for that. I just declare myself medically fit to fly on the phone with scheduling. Is it in an LOA/LOU?

Dera, words escape me so I have to resign myself to jus G. F. Y.

Can’t we all just get along and be bitter at our dog crap contract and management that hates us?

We all can. But when someone like Cujo who thinks Via is the finest 121 out there comes and tells people how things work at Envoy, I dislike that.
*****ing about Envoy contract should be left to Envoy pilots if they so wish to do.

Damn straight, Cujo wouldn't know a thing about MQ! Who is he to argue with dera!

Not in the contract, FM1 is where it is writ.

How naive can you get? Every year they keep you at Envoy is one year less they will be paying you at the top rate you would otherwise retire at at AA.

THE MONEY ALL COMES FROM THE SAME PLACE.

Every year they can drag the flow out saves them the difference between Envoy top captain pay and AA top captain pay.

Call it $190K per pilot per year.

Truth. If they wanted us to move as fast as possible, they would beating down our door demanding we agree to increase in flow.

Lol. You really don’t know do you? Cujo knows Envoy better than you or dera. Although I don’t agree with everything he says he could fly circles around you both with his experience at Envoy.

I think there was more than a little sarcastic, tongue in cheek mockery of dera’s Envoy experience in BigZ’s post.

I was being sarcastic.

So they rather pay a street hire the money?Either way they aren’t getting out of paying guys/gals to fly for AA. None of this is personal from AA. I do believe it could become personal from Envoy if flow threatens the integrity of the regional operation.

Dera gets upset because I tell people that the little company I worked at for a year or so treats their pilots better than most regionals, including Envoy. Tell me another regional that positive spaces their pilots to/from work and the pilot keeps the air miles. Tell me another regional that provides hotels every night of the trip, even in base, and the pilot keeps all hotel points. Other than that, they are as screwed up as the next regional; better in some ways, worse in others.

You can't go only by what you read on these type of boards as they are all almost always negative towards their employer. You have to temper all the negative posts, with the few positive ones.

Example, Envoy... as abusive as management can be at times, and as lousy at it is for commuters; it is a very stable company, with good infrastructure, good training programs, good instructors, good equipment, good MX programs, and a great employee group. It also provides a flow program which was unlike any other. It was copied somewhat and given to PDT/PSA.... but it originated with Eagle.

The terms of the flow have deteriorated over time, getting fewer benefits and fewer monthly flows as time has progressed. Originally, flow thru pilots had numbers on the APA pilot seniority list.... in essence reserving their spot there while still here. Then was the 824 crowd from an arbitration over them violating the flow agreement... the arbitrator awarded 824 more slots. That was to be the end of the flow through program, but you guessed it... a bunch of more contract grievances, and well... those grievances were settled by creating a new flow thru program. It said 50% of every new hire each year had to come from Eagle/Envoy. Later during the bankruptcy the company used flow as a negotiation tool, and along came the flow for everybody hired after 10-2011. Due to more flow contract violations, they settled a grievance by increasing the withholding from 25 to 29 per month (not per class... as AA often runs more than one class a month) under the old rules it should have been 50% of all new hires.... but that's a story for another time in and of itself.

Anyway, the point is the flow has been gradually been reduced in quality, and in quantity. Originally guys had numbers, took all their sick, vacation and ICE benefits with them. Then it was just taking ICE benefits, then it was just an inter-company transfer with no benefits, and now it's just flow with no transfer of benefits. It went from 50% to just 29 a month, and later it will drop again.

Meanwhile, the number of retirements industrywide at legacy, LCC, some ACMI and other career destinations are kicking into full gear. 2019 is the first year where legacy retirements alone will exceed 3,000. So, while the flow is slowing, the hiring is actually picking up. The latest union estimates put flow time at around 8 years from date of hire for a new hire. In this market, if they haven't been hired someplace else before then, then they haven't been applying anywhere or trying very hard. The flow used to be great, but now is rapidly becoming less valuable than a life insurance policy to a teenager.

Take a LOSA job, and instructor gig, a check airman slot to spice up your resume. Do volunteer work at ALPA National on Safety or Education committees... stay out of the contracts, negotiations, representatives or anything else that could tick off your Envoy managers. Take the volunteer jobs that look good on a resume and allow you to network with your mainline counterparts.... those are the volunteer jobs at ALPA worth doing. Then attend the job fairs and get yourself face time with your target airlines. Those who stand out will be the ones hired first, and seniority is everything.

Good luck to all; it's a great time to be a pilot.

Long but worth the read, thanks for the perspective Cujo. It’s tough to piece the history together from snippets of conversations with sr captains, and posts like that are really illuminating.

We must have went to different Envoy's because the training program was garbage. Clueless PSI's.. I can't even begin to explain.

Here's a good level headed post. I do apologize, but sometimes the negativity here gets pretty old. It's like you're not allowed to like your job.

Every PSI anyone from our class had was complete dogsh*t. The line guys are rockstars. Thankfully we only had one sim with a PSI. And that was a waste of time.
As a whole, the training program was decent. But if you get stuck with PSI's it will be total trash.

Feel free to *****...

In December 2014 Moak (the ALPA National president at the time) rode into town on his white horse to attend an Envoy MEC meeting in person. He made them turn off all cellphones, ipads, laptops and even disconnected reps who were on teleconference so his speech could not be recorded. He then told the MEC that he had been in contact the Parker and that after 1 & 3/4 years of getting nowhere with a CBA for Envoy he had finally decided to go ahead and Comair Envoy and transfer the flying to PSA & PDT over time. Moak claimed to have used his influence to get one last chance to save Envoy pilots from permanent furlough. That prompted him to attend the MEC meeting in December 2014.

After 1.75 years of contract fighting, in December 2014 I did vote to send the TA to the pilots for a vote.
In fact, the vote to send it to the pilots failed the first time. It was a split vote and I was the deciding No vote.

They had a section in the prelude of whereas statements that said that Envoy ALPA thanks ALPA National for all their help and assistance in obtaining this agreement.

Since my opinion was that ALPA did NOT help us obtain a fair contract, and instead we had more help from the APA fighting Envoy I refused to vote to approve the TA with that in there. The TA failed.

I made a motion to reconsider with a modification. I forced them to remove any and all reference to ALPA national being helpful in obtaining that TA. We then voted again, and it passed by one vote; mine. To this day it is one of the very very few CBA's without a reference to ALPA National.

I think that might qualify me to comment on the contract Dera……

This is all good info, and hard to find too. Thanks for posting it.
Again, I did apologize on the previous page. This subforum just happens to be a bit of a toilet bowl of APC. People post negative crap all the time, even when it's without any factual base "we have the worst reserve rules (no we don't)", "175 FO reserve is over a year! (no it isn't)" and so on, and if you try to inject any positive comments, people start hating on you. It gets old pretty quick.
Your post just happened to be the last one on that page, and my trigger finger was a bit too quick.

The new (past few years) PSI program is a change that I think was not for the better. However, if you factor in that all the other training centers are also having issues then Envoy still stands out as better than average. Heck, Flight Safety takes guys who have never been in the real plane; types them, and then has them teaching others. Most of the younger good instructors have been scooped up by mainline carriers. As hard as it is to get good pilots; it's almost harder to get good instructors.

As a few POI's about stories from other training centers. My airline is just opening it's own new training center and some of the stories I've heard while chatting with the FAA guys about other regionals would raise your hair on end. As bad as you think Envoy's is.... there are worse. I know one airline where the FAA just recently pulled every check airman's letter, and made them all reapply.

Envoy has a very structured training program, which is great. You pretty much have a set schedule, and you stick to it. The PSIs suck, but the older line guys are amazing.
First hour in the sim we had to unlearn everything the PSIs told us to do during IPTs. And the sim session we had with a PSI was a total waste of time.

But then, things aren't flawless elsewhere either. Just as a comparison, Endeavor has "dynamic scheduling" which means you sit standby at the hotel until they call you for a sim slot. Must be fun sitting in a hotel room in Minneapolis for a week, doing absolutely nothing.

Well, the reserve rules were written back in 2000. Amended in 2004, 2008 & 2012. When FTDT changed in 2013 there were no amendments either. So, realistically the reserve rules as written do not even directly corelate to the rules as they are now. They are the worst because there are so many sections, letters of agreement, side letters, grievance settlements, arbitration awards and who knows what else that you can't even really figure out which section trumps which section since you can find conflicting data if you dig hard enough. The company is in no hurry to make any changes at all because the ambiguity works well for them. The CBA means what they say it means at the time, because they can pick which section to use. Then when you point to a different sections they say, oh yeah... well we don't see it that way, feel free to file a grievance, but in the meantime fly it then grieve it.

Not sure when ALPA lost their balls, but I remember when I was hired that if it wasn't in the contract then it wasn't binding. If it wasn't binding I wasn't obligated. If I wasn't obligated, then I wasn't doing it.... and we went home. When they tried their management rights stuff that since it wasn't covered by CBA they could do as they pleased, we'd cite some DOL law under the RLA that any change to the working conditions, work rules, or compensation was required to be negotiated... and until then, we weren't obligated. Then sometime around 2009 it became the current fly it a grieve it crap.

Honestly, I almost got National to go to bat to argue that the RLA shouldn't apply to regionals since we were not a real airline. We were only a staffing company.
We owned no planes.
We owned no gates.
We owned no routes.
We sold no tickets.
We leased no concourses.
ALPA actually was considering flighting that we should have been under the NLRB and NFSLA and not the RLA.... and then one thing stopped them dead in their tracks. A small piece of paper that said "Air Carrier Certificate."

I argued at the National BOD meeting in 2014 that the PAC should be tasked with updating the RLA commensurate with modern business practices. In other words, when the RLA was written you couldn't go to a TWA pilot and say give us these concessions or we are giving your flying to PanAm. The RLA wasn't written with the outsourced business model in mind. The very fact of outsourcing the flying is contrary to the status quo requirement during section six negotiations.... yet it happens all the time because the RLA doesn't consider contract flying CPA's.
When I made that motion; the place went into pandemonium. A parade of lawyers entered the committee room and explained for three hours why they didn't want to touch the RLA. IN the end they scared enough reps, that nothing got done.

I did manage to get defending the 1500 hour rule added as an agenda item and ratified by the whole Board of Directors. I smile every time I see an ALPA advertisement or video defending the FTDT/1500 hour rules. That was my doing. The Delta, United & Fedex reps helped me organize it, word it and push it through. The Delta guys more than others. If there is one thing I did good for this industry, that was it.

Thank God you were there to ride in on your white horse and save everyone. :cool:

LOL, that was Moak…. To this day, I don't know if he lied or if it was true. I used the "ride in on his white horse" comment because I was told (heard rumor) that he did something similar at Pinnacle/Endeavor.... came in at the last minute in person to push through a TA at a regional MEC.... and that's how they described him; as having come in on his white horse the save them from themselves....

I've never been the hero type. Sometimes lucky, sometimes not so much. Just always tried hard at everything.

So I guess three beers in is where I lose my sense of sarcasm. My fault.

No biggie, no offense taken.

Friends don’t let friends drink and APC.

*slow clap*

... so what happens at 4? :confused::confused::eek:

Profit

Filler

I like it better when you a cheerleader for company. Now you just hate company and cheer on yourself. You right about one thing. The flow not going to keep working. I hear guys on here are new hires and say they flow in 6 or 8 years. Exactly what company wants. They want you to use lowest flow number which is 8 and put it with lower number. Flow now 8 to 10 years. Not 6 to 8. Really flow will be gone then. Not enough pilot to fly envoy Rj.

What?




.

Why use many word when few word do trick

On the contrary; I don’t hate the company at all. I do dislike the manner in which some executive level managers operate though. The place promotes those who “get more” from those employees under their charge without concern over how they do it. This encourages and rewards abusive treatment.

It’s still a good company. Other regionals are paying better and starting to treat their pilots better, so eventually Envoy will come around.

I still recommend Envoy to new aspiring pilots and have quietly helped several get jobs there. In this environment, I do not recommend any FFD regional that isn’t wholly owned. We saw during the bankruptcy that pilots would voluntarily recycle themselves to a new carrier if it brought a quicker upgrade. That same principle will be used when the shortage worsens. The wholly owned will pull the flying back in house. It will cause downgrades at the vendors, possibly even furloughs if done quickly enough. At the same time the WO’s will continue upgrading. Those pilots will recycle themselves just to have a job. AAG won’t be buying regionals, they’ll just steal the pilots by taking the flying back. When push comes to shove and the shortage worsens, being at an outside contractor won’t be the place to be.

After that, the hiring will be so fast-n-furious that even the WO’s will shrink as mainlines take the flying back. Before that happens expect the three AA WO’s to be merged into a new single airline.... probably called.... American Eagle Airlines.

Never thought that I would find myself in agreement with you but on one point here I do. Envoy indeed is growing like gangbusters and will continue to do so as we reclaim flying. This means even more upgrades and increasing flow. The flow is operating on all cylinders currently and Envoy is THE best option for new aviators today. New hires will upgrade as soon as they have their required time and then flow to AA just a few short years after.