[QUOTE=dera;
I know this is not a popular opinion here, but I'm betting the flow time will drop dramatically.

I'm gonna bet a beer on this - there will be 3 year flows within the next 5 years.[/QUOTE]

I'm with dera on this. I'll gladly let you buy me that beer in 23 when Envoy is flowing guys with 3 years on property.

So you are saying that someone hired today, would flow in 3 years? How is that possible when we have people hired a year ago scheduled to flow in 5 years? I have warmed up to Dera over time, but I have to disagree with them on this one.

Show me the math, I hope I am wrong. It just doesn't add up to me. We are hiring about 20-30 a month, flowing about 20-25 a month. We cant flow more than what the company can replace without something serious changing the dynamic.

That's not what I was saying. I meant there will be pilots who have only been at Envoy for under 4 years and are flowing before 2023. For someone hired today, heck no.
Looks like I was off by a bit. just over 4.5 years(4 years 7 months to be exact) seems to be the shortest it'll be. The 4.5 year guys start flowing later this year and on to 2021. I'll be glad to buy those beers. What I was right about was that the flow time really did drop, and it has dropped pretty nicely for everyone this year.

Just take a look at the retirement numbers. Over 900 this year and only increasing over the next 5. There aren't enough military pilots in the pipeline to fill the gap between the flows and them. Something will have to happen. Do you think AA will increase the flow or start hiring more RAH, SkyWest and ExpressJet guys? I'm banking on the flow increase. Think about it. Envoy already is part of AAG, flies AA routes, same computer system, NN numbered aircraft, same uniforms, paychecks, etc. Yep, I could see the flow increasing and the time dropping in the future. No doubt.

It makes sense to increase flow at WO carriers in order to preserve hope and hiring intake. The flow is a definite attractor as long as it is at a reasonable time frame. Presently, it has exceeded an attractive threshold.
It makes sense for AA to additionally raid other regionals for pilots. Twofold benefit. 1. Preserves manpower at WO carriers, ensures a fairly predictable staff level.
2. Raiding other airlines for pilots creates disruptions for competitors.
The routes and computer issues really mean nothing.
If the Max issue carries on too long and pilots become too scarce, you are going to see JBlue, Spirit and Frontier get acquired for planes AND pilots.

Ok fair enough and I agree with you when stated this way. Any idea what the seniority numbers would be for those people flowing at 4.5?

All valid points, except I just dont see them being able to hire more pilots than they are flowing to facilitate a flow increase. It really will come down to a training threshold and a hiring threshold. Once we hit that point, we just won't be able to move more people through quicker without hampering the WO operation. If you are arguing that AA would rather flow more while also removing flying from their WO's, I could see the numbers working that way.

This is what I see happening, poaching from other regionals. Why hamper their own WO's when they can hire pilots away from other competitors. There are thousands of highly qualified pilots that could easily meet AA's hiring standards sitting left seat at Endevor, Republic, Skywest, Wisconsin, Express Jet etc. I feel this is the much more likely scenario.

I just want to add, that as much as I call ThKooj out on the over the top statements, I do in fact hope they are right, sadly I just dont think they are.

RW was came to my new hire class and said flow will increase “soon”

take it for what it’s worth

Right after he fixes the scheduling and the reserve rules...

hope he is right but he is also the same one saying an LAX base for the last three years.

He has toned it down lately. Now it's "we get the planes but not the base".

well good, at least it’s not a total shot in the dark anymore.

technically 2 yrs ago it was "planes, we will try to capture the west coast flying, not necessarily with 175s"

what month was your class?

If they can get the flow up to, say, 35/month, our flow will be attractive for new hires. Right now, knowing what I know now, I wouldn't bother coming here as a new hire unless you plan to live in a junior domicile; the flow is far enough out of reach that you'll have missed your opportunity to have a decent seniority number. A flow of 35 per month would nearly guarantee that a new hire today would flow in 5.0-5.5 years without outside attrition.

That said, flow looks like a huge PITA for training and recruitment with all the turnover and training events created. Out of curiosity, if Envoy's training department is operating at full capacity, what's the potential turnout of new pilots monthly?

As a few of you alluded to: regardless of flow, recruiting is going to ramp up significantly at all majors and the regionals are going to get purged of pilots. The only real way to get the majority of pilots to stay here or PSA and Piedmont is to give us AA seniority numbers with contractually guaranteed employment at AA. I know I wouldn't bother leaving for DAL/UAL/SWA/FDX/UPS if I had an AA seniority number. Is it wishful thinking? Probably. Is it probably the only realistic scenario in which AA's wholly-owned regionals don't get decimated by the legacy/LCC hiring? Definitely.

I am not sure what the threshold is for training, but would put it around 20-30 month to be at a comfortable level, otherwise the costs and times would go way up. The days of seeing 90 new hires a month are gone as that well has been tapped and the struggle to get those through training was enormous.

In terms of an AA seniority number, while the best option I can see, is unlikely as they would be afraid of the cost. It would solve all of AA's potential issues going forward. It would allow pilots to stay at the regionals longer knowing they already have seniority at mainline, helping to stop what will be a regional glut in the coming years. I just cant see how else they will do it as I honestly dont think recruiting 25 people a month is going to stop what could be a huge outflow of Captains in the next year or so. I know many who have less than 2 years left to flow that are actively trying to get hired at any major that will take them. If these people start getting picked up, it will spell trouble for the regional.

The next year should prove interesting for sure but I think the route they will take is just a free for all hiring bonanza where each major is trying to steal pilots from their competitors.

I agree with you on all accounts. I think 2020 will be telling as far as what the trend is going to look like for major hiring, regional recruitment + retention.

Five of the last seven captains I've flown with have CJOs at Delta for class dates early this year. Not sure if it's coincidence or there is a trend here where major carriers are going to target their competitor's regional feeds.

If we lose tons of captains this year to attrition, flow is going to get throttled. Anyone have the flow formula handy? What's the lowest we could flow per our LOA?

5 for the post DOS group. That would be a lot of shrinkage though.

And yet all the folks over at PSA talk about their flow picking up in the coming years. We may not see more than 25 a month, but if PSA ramps up theirs AA will find a lot more pilots.

(I don’t know what PSA’s flow rate is now but their pilot group is nearly the size of Envoys)

It's a flat 10/month, and I believe we're somewhere around a total of 2070 on the list (including training). Our flow is not based on size, but rather our agreement to senior-man upgrades via LOA.

explain to me why any RATIONAL person would NOT be doing this? Yeah, there may be a few, someone with a new kid who wants to maintain his/her seniority for another year for scheduling purposes, but if you were hiring for a major would you really want people who weren’t actively trying to do things to improve their chances of getting hired?


i don’t think anyone will have any option other than to do that. And the regionals will need to either fold or take the Atlas route of putting anyone they can get in training and hoping they can make it through and then hoping they don’t do any serious damage to the brand if they do.

The person this was directed at was saying people would be silly to leave for Spirit because we have the flow. You would be surprised, we have people content with waiting out the flow, we also have lots that are doing whatever they can to get out early.

I mean, there are other options, it is just a question of IF they want to use them. The seniority number option was mentioned for example. This could easily lock in all kinds of benefits.

1. Day one at regional you get a mainline seniority number. Recruitment troubles instantly become a thing of the past, especially for the early adopters.
2. Pay scales stay the same, based on aircraft size, but you know your number will always be climbing.
3. No rush to move on or jump from company to company as you are accruing seniority.
4. Solves the problem on both fronts. Encourages people to join at the regional level and keeps them there for a scheduled amount of time, all the while filling your retirement vacancies at a predictable rate.
5. This won't happen however, mostly due to APA and the added perceived cost of giving someone a seniority number that early.

Maybe once ALPA can be useful finally for a regional, if they come up with this deal.

I would be more concerned with what ALPA gives up in return.

Problem is that mainline AA off street hiring would tank (at least talking better applicants), as why would someone leave the military to be forever leapfrogged for 6+ years of regional pilots flowing in above them?

I mean I guess they would have to have a provision in place to protect a military pilot. Would seem pretty simple and most people in this industry accept that military flyers leap frog them already, so I would imagine this would be received without much resistance.

Could be something along the lines of the military pilot takes a seniority number equivalent to their class average or something.

What do you mean, class average? They now bump all the reservists who were hired ten years earlier while the active duty guys were doing their 10 year ADSC? That would be a disaster for recruiting.

The clock is ticking, people are interviewing as we speak. They better come up with something or there won’t be any captains or senior FO’s left.

not sure I understand what you saying. To what I was saying you just take a military guy and give them a number that is the same as the new hire class they are in. My point was military pilots already get a leg up on hiring over regional pilots so this would be no different.

this would allow them still hire military pilots without the problem of being leap frogged by all the regional pilots below them with a seniority number. Pretty sure any regional pilot would totally fine with that assuming they received a seniority number on day one of WO service.

so you would interdigitate the new hire military into an existing seniority list? So for every military new hire every person on the WO list finds themselves bumped BACKWARDS in seniority? And that won’t create any resentment? How about the guy retiring with 20 years in who comes to the WO to knock off the dust from a decade of flying a desk. So once he gets the dust knocked off, his WO number goes away, and everyone else takes a step back?

to the first part, yes. It already happens. We have military pilots skipping the line already and getting preferential interviews. So I don’t see how this is any different. Basically every military new hire now is in theory pushing us down one more number as we will never be able to get that spot.

In regards to the second, that happens now. I look at seniority as every single person hired ahead of me essentially is one more number down the list.

Yeah, but doesn’t that destroy the “allure” if any, of having a seniority number? If your number goes down with every military or street hire or WO guy/gal that gets out of sequence hired at the major, and up when every guy/gal at the WO gets hired at some other major, there isn’t any meaningful difference between what you got now and what you are proposing. What you are proposing is a distinction without a difference.

All you are really doing is putting lipstick on the existing pig and trying to convince people she is beautiful, yet nothing changes. you won’t go to mainline one minute quicker than you would have anyway and your alleged “seniority number” is actually written in smoke, and still progresses - up OR DOWN - only at the whim of mainline HR.

the assumption would be that street hires would go away and all new hires would come through the WO’s. This would all apply just to military. In addition it would keep pilots loyal to AA.

plus we are only talking seniority. We would all have the same contract, work rules, retirement etc.

What could be done is give credit for longevity at the WOs. That wouldn’t change seniority, but it WOULD give incentive to stay. Your pay and vacation would be based on hire date at the WO, but your seniority would be based on mainline.

Facing a possible systemwide pilot shortage, you expect management to GIVE UP THE ABILITY TO HIRE QUALIFIED NONMILITARY OTS? While guys at the WO can take early offers from other majors if they can get them? :eek:

What concessions are you willing to make on your next contract to get that? No, don’t even bother. The thirteenth amendment will stop them from making any deal they might otherwise be willing to make. :D

So you want to START at the WO as a nine year FO and be off the chart by the time you upgrade to captain. How desperate do you think they are? Remember, the purpose of the flow FROM THE MANAGEMENT PERSPECTIVE is TO STAFF THE WO because it’s cheaper than bringing that flying to mainline. So what you are proposing is that - except for the OTS guys - every guy that flows is going to cost mainline an extra $50 an hour over what a street hire would cost them?

You seriously believe that will fly with management? Really? And that they wouldn’t slow flow to a crawl to save money by hiring as many OTS from non WO regionals and the military as possible?

Management exists to make money for the stockholders, not to make their regional feed guys happy.

H€//, the existing pilot group wouldn’t allow them to negotiate that deal even if they wanted to - which they don’t - because the pilot group considers it a zero sum game, that any extra money given to flow guys comes out of money that would have otherwise gone to the group as a whole. You couldn’t even get a majority of the mainline pilots who CAME FROM WOs to vote for that deal.

Bizarre industry. We're supposed to have solidarity as labor vs. management & capital, but we're definitely fighting for a piece of the same pie and APA would garnish their 3.5 slices with our crumb if given a chance to vote on it.

Maybe that's just a rational market being rational. It makes me sad though.

One thing I know for sure though. Nothing will change for the better for anyone as long as there are butts in seats. Even if those butts can barely fly.

Wouldn’t necessarily have to be a one for one for pay, maybe even just the vacation, but the idea of starting seniority day one at a WO and jumping every OTS hire is even more unorthodox. But they will need to do SOMETHING to make the flow more attractive. I think most, besides the KoolAid swilling propaganda spewers, will agree something has to change from the current model.

Defeats the purpose of your get a seniority number day one at a WO.

You can’t have your cake and eat it too. You can either give WO’s a seniority number at AA day one and destroy off the street hiring at AA. Or you can increase flow considerably.

They’re just going to end up increasing off the street hiring.

in regards to all the discussion, fair points to be had. I don’t claim to have all the answers but I do agree something needs to change and conversations like this help everyone wrap the brains around topics.

Anyway, good chat keep the ideas coming.