That your situation is no different than anybody else’s except for how you react to it, ‘you’ in this case being the pilot group as a whole. Wholly owned or not, a regional dances to the tune of their codeshare partner who is paying them. And yes, the RLA isn’t working as it is supposed to, in part because the unions seem reluctant to go to federal court to try to compel the NMB to actually meet the timelines spelled out in the law. But I honestly think a good part of the problem - for those who have it - is the promise of flow.

None of the legacies and few of the majors really have any serious problem getting well qualified applicants. The only benefit of flow - to them - is that it is an effective device for insuring that their regionals get a large supply of cheap labor, because regionals DO have a problem getting well qualified applicants. So flow and cadet programs are mechanisms to assure a goodly supply of cheap labor at the regional.

And the major offering a flow program really doesn’t CARE if those in it are slow to progress. They are a butt in the seat, making money for the company at the regional and no matter how much they are making there - even as a Captain - it’s less than they would be paid as a second year FO at the major.

In fact, every year they can delay that person flowing to mainline is worth - to the company - the difference between a WO Captain with those years of seniority and a legacy Captain’s final year of pay, retirement, and bennies, which is a fairly princely sum. And while you PERSONALLY might have your apps out, a lot of your fellow pilots are falling right in to the trap. And the trap isn’t really just cheap pay, because - frankly speaking - it’s chickenfeed compared to what the company gains by delaying upgrade a few years. The most you are going to get in a new CBA is - what, $10 an hour. Times 1000 hours a year?

Stalling one pilot upgrading to AA mainline for one year will save AA the difference between a senior Envoy CA (currently $90 an hour but let’s bump it $10 and call it $100k annually) and a senior AA CA ($342+16%= roughly $400K). Because that’s how much less AA will eventually be paying them at that top rate. Stalling flow - delaying for one year the onset of mainline seniority and lowering the average seniority of the AA mainline pilot group is huge. It dwarfs the cost of initial training of newbies at mainline.

So every pilot that is ONE YEAR OLDER when he finally flows is a $300K WIN for AA management, just in that one last year, and more savings for every year it delays them getting to that top pay.

So if somebody at one of their regionals wants to be unaggressive about applying to majors, that’s great with them. Eventually they’ll MAKE you upgrade - they do have to have captains after all and the supply of DECs is finite - but nobody at AA is going TO ENCOURAGE anybody to get to mainline one instant sooner than they can drag it out.

You mention Compass. They have 700 pilots, give or take, and they attrit (or more accurately ‘graduate’) 20 pilots a month, with a current median ‘loiter time’ at that regional of something under four years before they move on to bigger and better things.

How long do people stay at Envoy?

 

No one’s flow changed based on new hires coming. The company has held the flow to minimum they could at all times. Increases to upgrade times sounds dubious to me, but I suppose maybe a bit. Not much though.
I don’t fault anyone for the career choices they make. If someone chooses to work here, more power to them. Saying new hires helps flow is ridiculous. I know it has been the party line for a long time, but it’s never actually been true.

 

Blaming new hires coming here now and not new hires that came on back in 2016, 2017 shows how short minded you are. If it makes sense now it made even more sense back then.

 

I disagree to an extent. There are better paying airlines that have flow now.

 

Your logic has a serious flaw.

Pilot flowing costs AA the same first year salary as an OTS hire.
Pilot NOT flowing costs AA higher regional rate, plus the same new hire rate for the OTS guy who they hired.
Pilot flowing can be replaced with a first year regional guy. That is way cheaper than hiring pilots direct to mainline OTS.

 

A pilot hired by AA OTS is probably 40 years old on average. A pilot flowing 8 years after getting hired as an Envoy cadet could be as young as 30.

For every extra year that AA can keep that 30 year old at Envoy, that's a year of top scale AA pay they don't have to pay that guy. A 30-year-old new hire will be a lot more expensive to AA than a 40-year-old new hire when all is said and done.

 

AA has hired multiple 30 year OTS guys. Clearly this is not an issue for them.
Stop making up stuff if you have no facts.

 

Nope. AA benefits to the extent they can START OLDER GUYS AT MAINLINE.

Seriously, did you think retired USAF O-6s were being hired at AA because they had UPT 23 years ago back in the twentieth century and then flew A-10s for ten years before finishing out their USAF career flying a desk? That their single seat bombing and strafing experience was all that valuable for flying pax? It isn’t.

Those guys get hired because they are 46 years old and reasonable training risks who are only going to work their way up to top pay for the last 7 years of their career. Also because they have no history of association with unions, already have a pension so they aren’t going to be pushing as hard for pay raises, and have Tricare benefits that decrease their insurance needs (and costs). They can do the job and they cost less. They are a butt in the seat.

Hiring a 26 year old means they are going to be paying that guy top rate for 28 years. Now granted, they are going to have to hire TWO of the old f@rts to get the same number of pilot years, which means the two old guys will still be on the top rate (combined) for 14 years, but they’ll also BOTH be working their way up that scale for 24 years and they’ll be saving money (compared to hiring one young guy and keeping him to his retirement) for 14 of those years.

If management could, they’d only have two scales, FO and Captain, because all they really care about is butts in the seat and anyone qualified by law to be there is - in management’s mind -interchangeable with anyone else that could legally hold that position. A 60 year old Captain with 5 years experience and a 55 year old newbie FO would be fine with them. They do not benefit - not to any great extent - by having someone flying at a major for 40 years most of that at top rate.

But the 12 year sliding payscale is engrained in both precedent and contract, so the only way they can manipulate it is to hire people who will spend the greatest part of their career on the lower rungs of the payscale ladder.

They learned their lesson with the mandatory retirement age change, when they found that allowing pilots to work to 65 forced them to retain their most expensive and least productive employees, the ones with the highest wages and most accrued benefits,

It would be different perhaps if there were any dearth of qualified applicants at the major level, but there isn’t - certainly not yet. Or if only young applicants were available, but with military retirements that’s not happening yet. But if they can get the average seniority level down they can really save money and keeping someone flying for them as a regional captain for an extra one or two years before they restart his seniority will save them some serious coin. Multiply that by several thousand people in the upcoming hiring wave and it’s even more.

If you don’t get it, go talk to an actuary and get them to explain it. The math is sound, and AAs financial people know it.

 

Not saying they don’t hire 30 year OTS guys, just saying that the purpose of the flow is to stock the regional, not to stock the mainline. Management knows that even if you don’t. Get an actuary to sit down and do the math with you if you can’t do it yourself.

 

I'm sure that they have. Here's the deal: the longer that you stay at Envoy, the less that you cost AA in the long run.