I think you did miss the point. He was saying that they use flow to keep their regionals staffed, not to keep AA staffed.

They don’t really need to keep either staffed now, unfortunately...

 

Ah. Well sure. That is also why people go to WO with a flow and accept lower pay and benefits than the non WO. It's also probably why so many people hate SkyWest.

 

You are backwards.

That is not what havick meant.

Big daddy needs a WO with flow to be staffed for the REGIONAL. The point of the flow is to control movement and cost at the WOs AND to keep those WO regionals staffed.

At no point anytime since deregulation and for quite a while before were the majors, legacies, national or what ever you want to call any airline that paid at least a living wage unable to find more than enough highly qualified pilots.

 

Think you misinterpreted what I said. The WO’s need flow to keep the WO regionals staffed. The company attaches a monetary value to flow by way of keeping wages depressed compared to some other regionals.

 

 

You don't have to worry about regional staffing for the next 5 yrs.

 

Yep, and you probably won't see much in the way of pay or QOL improvements for the next 5 years either. Damn supply and demand.

 

This is why I always advocated negotiating to improve wages and work rules at Eaglevoy over improving the flow. The company needed a functioning flow program to attract new hires ONLY when pilot supply is short. If the flow didn't work well, they had to either increase wages and working conditions, or increase the flow. Increasing the flow was essentially FREE for them, yet they always insisted on getting something from the union/pilots in exchange for doing what they were going to have to do anyway. Unfortunately, I was in the minority on the MEC at the time... and the never ending pay for flow deals attitude continued.

We all knew that when the pilot supply caught up, the bonus programs would vanish and there'd be no more work rule improvements. The pandemic has created that dynamic early by about 5 years. Thankfully, there were enough band-aids before the music stopped that the job has improved and looks very different than it did in the old days. Pay has come up, it's still not where it should be, but it's a far cry from the $22 I started at, and the $18 other guys started at. The lost decade guys spent over a decade in the right seat, while very recently they were hiring street captains. We used to crash in the crew room on overnights in base, there were ZERO commuter hotels, there were ZERO hotels for cancelations in base. The reserve rules still suck, and the CBA is so LOA/MOU/amendment round modified over the years that it is swiss cheese. It needs a total rewrite.

The place has changed a great deal. The one thing that has not changed is this management team. They are the most notorious, untrustworthy, miserable bunch in the industry. There is a reason that these guys have NEVER left the bottom end regional management level for anything better. The carrier I'm at has had 1 (one) grievance in 2 years. Yes, we are treated that much better. We had hundreds of grievances at Eaglevoy. The differences in management style are astounding.

Keep your chin up, I think the recovery will come sooner than the doom and gloom sayers are predicting. There will be some pain in the process. Keep your logbooks updated and keep pushing to get up and out. The mainlines won't be hiring for several years, but not the long ten years some were/are predicting. If you're in the furlough zone and can grab an Atlas/Southern job before their new contract gets done you'd be smart. Once the furloughs start, the competition for ANY job will get tough.

I recommend the LogBookPro software for PDA and desktop for importing flight records directly from SABRE/DECS and being able to print Jep style logbooks in PDF or take the file to Fedex for printing. It costs a litte bit but really makes a killer presentation when going for jobs.

 

Oh wow, our resident superhero is still on his vision quest. Look, there are some things that you say that do make sense but by far, you try and take credit for way too much stuff you had nothing to do with. You didn't single-handedly save ALPA and the profession. I give far more credit to Envoy management, who you so graciously discredit here, than anything ALPA has ever done. They actually created the pipeline program which helped solidify the flow and essentially one interview, one career at Envoy. It was a brilliant move in an environment where getting pilots was starting to get tough. Instead of going out and dragging dollar bills behind a pickup truck at FBOs hiring Billy Bob away from his cropduster or Virgil from flying that clapped out Baron for some wannabe oil prospector, they made one of the most genius moves in the industry. They partnered with the universities and worked in tandem with the program that essentially places the pipeline candidate in class on Day One more ready than just about anybody before in the history of Eagle/Envoy.

It's nice you've had a soft landing and are enjoying working at a sub par carrier, but let's face it, that's not for the vast majority. The smartest guys in the country have all found their way to a respective pipeline university and bought themselves an AA career.

 

Did you ever ask them where they got the idea for the pipeline program? or the phrase Cradle to Grave? That management team hasn't had an original idea of their own in decades. That idea was suggested to them at an MEC meeting. It was mostly Neal, Jamie and little from me. You could literally see the wheels spinning in Isom's head. This Envoy management team only knows how to copy the work of others, or have ideas given to them by others. The real fact is that the AAG lawyers - to this day - have heartache over the whole advertising campaign with the one interview cradle to grave thing, which is why they toned it down a bit. It was looking too much like one job, not two... single carrier. That's why they have unofficial stooges like you on here saying the things they no longer want to say because it would come to bite them in the ***.

My (as you call it) sub-par carrier has grown 22% during the pandemic; how's yours doing?
We're the top first year pay in the industry to this day.
Our 12 year 767 CA rate is $297 p/h.... correct me if I'm wrong but AA's is $293 p/h
No planes have been parked
No pilots have been furloughed
A management team that mostly works with us, not against us....
We've only had one (1) grievance in two years, Envoy does hundreds each year caused by their unethical management
No plans to furlough are even being discussed.
A new to us 767 was recently put into service at Omni
Another new to us 767 is on its way this year
In the past two years the 767 fleet will have increased by 33% (Two-thirds of that this year during the pandemic)
New Hire classes slowed but never stopped
New hire classes are continuing to run right now
A new to us training center has recently opened
We continue to interview and hire
The window opened last week for 4 hours. 1200 applications flooded the system.

The retirement benefits are definitely better at AA, but how long do you expect to be furloughed Kooj? Job security and stability has value too. Flying for multiple departments of the US Govt, among other sources, makes for a very stable airline. Unlike AA, we've never aimed to be the largest airline in the world; we've aimed to be the best in the world at what we do.

My advice to current Envoy pilots is unless they are in the left seat making decent pay and can wait the 5 years for things to pick back up, they should consider getting on with an Atlas/Southern while they can before the furloughs start at the legacies. If you are definitely furlough fodder DO NOT WAIT FOR IT TO HAPPEN. Start applying now. Even look at Commutair which will be growing to take on all the Expressjet flying to keep yourself employed. Mesa is adding 737 ACMI flying to their company. You can go from an RJ to a 737 just by seniority. What looks better when legacy hiring gets restarted; an Envoy E145/175 RJ driver or a Mesa B737 guy? Competition will be tight, make yourself stand out.
An Envoy junior FO will be looking at a combined 9+ years to flow to AA at this point; and that is only if AA survives at it's former size. Depending on your age, that may be too long to sit at a regional.
A few of the better 135 and Fractional programs are still hiring, so don't overlook applying there too.