likely quite awhile after that. There will still be a training lag.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/01/apa-...ed-pilots.html

And at that, it’s simpler and cheaper to do recalls than new type ratings. And with fleets with multiple type ratings - like American - the training requirements as people change types are more extensive than simple recurrency training. There are only so many sims and trainers and whatever equipment is doing the most flying - which right now is the junior equipment - is the limiting factor in recalling people.

Nothing happens quickly.

Inflated bonuses to get you in the door, the prospect of flow to keep your butt in the seat. All to work near industry low QOL rules and pay (especially at the CA level where it counts). Sounds like to me the whole "point" of flow is working really really well for one side.

lol, who the f@!@ are you kidding? Envoy was hiring anybody with a pulse before COVID hit.

Anyone who spends over $100k to earn a degree is an idiot (medical doctors excluded)

Then we have a ton of idiots in this country. No way you don’t break $100,000 if you attend out of state. In state a tuition, cheapest I’ve seen is $9,000 a semester which would ring you up around $70,000 after it’s all said and done (state schools normally). Obviously scholarships can mitigate some costs.

It comes down to the degree you hold, and from where do you hold it. I’d say the best degree for the price I’ve ever seen is in state tuition, University of Texas, Finance program. They have a substantial amount of grads who work for the likes of Goldman Sacks and other Wall Street banks. Not to mention wall street is starting to move down to Texas if you’ve read the recent news.

I can't speak for Envoy, but at PSA with all the base closures and downgrades it's gone from probably 70-80% of my FO's saying they'd wait for the flow down to 20-30% anecdotally of course.

As for Captains pretty much everyone I've talked to has shifted to jump ship asap mentality especially if they have their 1,000 pic (for whatever that's worth now).

Personally I've always had my eyes on the LCC's for the QOL but I know in the past I was in the minority.

You're just now realizing that?


Nonsense. Not sure where you're looking but there are hundreds of (accredited) institutions across the country one can get a degree for a fraction of that.

If you look at it dispassionately, AA doesn’t WANT to flow people, because it is more costly to them than a military or OTS hire.

No major has a serious problem getting applicants. But in order to flow someone AA not only must train the person they pick up but backfill that person’s slot at the WO, which means recruiting and training costs for the replacement. If AA can instead pick up some competing regional guy, not only do they get the guy for nothing but the other guys regional will have to recruit and train the replacement.

It’s a two-fer, they save money by not having to replace the WO regional guy and cost the competition by making them find and train a replacement.

And retiring/separating military pilots? Millions of dollars of taxpayer funded training? People who have mostly NEVER been in a union? Many with a pension and healthcare benefits already? They can’t snap those up quick enough.

so yeah, it’s not - and never will be - about staffing the major. It’s about keeping the WO guys there long enough that they get senior enough that it’s easier to just not make the jump to the major where they’ll go back to being on reserve in the junior base and be furlough-bait for the next downturn.

Wow, can't believe it but you hit the nail on the head. To throw more icing on the cake, Envoy has the exact same uniforms, seamless payroll system, flies NN registerd aircraft in addition the caveat of already knowing the system, flight plans, DECS, Jetnet, etc.

This is all you really need to know about the flow from the outside looking in, hopefuls. I'm sure most won't take it to heart, but the smart ones will.

and as much as they hate it, Envoy needs smart people.

Flying the NN registered aircraft is a game changer. Imagine how crazy of a transition it would be to fly something with a SK or even an AE behind it. #AlreadyAmerican

/sarcasm

Or AN, JN, JW, MW, MQ, FR, RN, LK.
did i miss one?

And imagine already knowing how to fly from ORD to CLT. And Jetnet? JEEEEEEETNEEEET!!?!?!?!?!? OMG, that is just icing on the cake. Talk about being overqualified. But that guy on the 787 already.

hey I was in Home Depot earlier buying air filters and I got the idea to do a new fire pit in my backyard. So that’s got me wondering.... I know you guys sell kits but how much can I save if I go the DIY route? Just buy a bunch of stone and rock etc? I don’t really want keystones, at least not the ones with that lip on them. What do you recommend? Are y’all having any Christmas sales etc?

thanks in advance.

You seriously think AA HR gives the north end of a southbound rat that you have ‘probably already paid off’ the training and re-recruiting cost at the WO? That positively reeks of the ‘sunk cost’ fallacy. Management types know better than that.

If AA seriously valued you as a major resource they could easily have a consolidated pilot seniority list that would start as new WO hire. Or they could just NOT meter the flow to limit it. But they don’t want that.

Moving you up to the major is still AN AVOIDABLE INCREMENTAL COST to AA that they do not incur when they hire military or OTS, and neither of those groups has had any serious difficulty coping with the FOM/AOM or other AA/WO procedures.

Face it, the purpose of the flow is to staff the WO. The major could easily - and more cheaply - be staffed simply with OTS and ex-military hires. At least once all the furloughed at the major are recalled.


https://i.ibb.co/SvHWL6F/E608-C357-7...F094-C9763.jpg

Forget UWE time, NN time is the single most valuable type of time out there.

There's no calculation in their minds that you've "already made them some money so now they owe you something".

Being "familiar" with the operation saves them no money, you have to get exactly the same training as any other new hire. If a new-hire has to learn a bunch of manuals and systems, that's a personal problem, not a management problem.

The only calculation they make is "how can we make our next move as cheaply as possible?" If flowing someone and thereby incurring a new-hire AND an upgrade training event at the WO in ADDITION to the mainline new-hire event is more costly than just hiring a fighter-pilot, they're going to hire the fighter pilot. Worse if they're having trouble recruiting for the regional, even more incentive to throttle the flow and hire from Skywest if needed.

Don’t forget KS! I need to add all of these to my resume LOL.

Don’t forget Jungle Jet “JJ”


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Every regional hired anyone with a pulse in 16, 17, and 18. I saw it first hand when transitioning/upgrading. Classes went from high time CFIs, 135, and 121 pilots to CFIs who needed sim time to meet RATP mins and second career peeps who tooled around the pattern in their own 172 for 1500hrs. All about Supply and Demand!

There was a mass exodus from Eagle, however; when I resigned in 2007 there were stacks of jepp manuals and FMs (pre-digital obviously) in the CP office. That week, 40 DFW FOs had bailed.

The flow is a carrot. Always has been. And AA isn’t the prettiest girl on the dance floor.

So is this why AAG sold the undelivered 175s to Republic? The rest are going to RAH.

Look up N294NN from flightaware.

This is the case at Delta and United as well. That’s why they are seeing the light and trying to reduce the fleet types. But it will be a long and costly process.

Yeah, the combination of different type ratings with different pay rates (and different bases) and the seniority system creates a truly hellish training load when you are forced to furlough or return pilots from furlough. That’s one of the reasons Boeing came up with the dual 757/767 type rating to begin with. I’m not sure why Boeing abandoned that concept but Airbus sure picked it up and ran with it - in fact raised it to an even higher standard with their A320 ‘family’ allowing you to fly anything from A319/320/321CEOs all the way through A319/320/321NEOs and 321LRs and 321XLRs on the same type, with relatively minimum differences trading for 330s and 350s. And a multiple type fleet is also expensive for maintainers, both in terms of parts and maintaining experience on the specific fleet type.

https://i.ibb.co/gr2MHBm/FA4-B93-F0-...-C6-CBEEC3.jpg

The single fleet-type airlines like SWA, NK, and F9 have a huge advantage over AA, UA, and DL in this regard, and the former do seem to now be realizing that. The fact that a year “x” pilot on any of the aircraft can be assigned to any aircraft in the fleet but gets the same pay regardless is also a huge help, since bidding to a different aircraft type (assuming there were any) for more money causes a lot of expense in training as well, short term equipment locks notwithstanding.

But you are right, it is a long and costly process. And it will continue to hinder the three biggest legacies well into the time that the single fleet airlines are recovering. Especially AA which has furloughed.

Yeah. The market is predicting that AA will continue to lose money through 3rd quarter 2021.

https://i.ibb.co/T8L75qm/1-AEAE190-0...19-CAE3-F8.jpg


That’s why they had to pay 12% to sell bonds this summer.

That is not true. There are handfuls each year when significant hiring is taking place, but those are almost always family and super hooked in networkers. If I had to pin it, I’d say 1 - 2% of all hiring, but it certainly happens. The only legacies still refusing anybody without one are Delta & FedEx. For all practical purposes, it may as well be zero though. Certainly nothing to plan a career on.

The sooner they get a CA to leave, the sooner they can replace him/her with a less senior cheaper CA. Flowing pilots faster keeps more junior pilots in the both seats.

Nope. Cheapest pilot the major can hire is retired military. The person is near zero training risk and he/she is probably 45 years old. So you got someone who already has a pension, already has pretty good medical coverage, and will only be around for 20 years - spending only eight years at the top of the scale. What they really DON’T want is some twenty-something zero-to-hero guy/gal who is going to be at top of the scale for three decades. It’s basic queuing theory.

And whatever savings they might get at the WO by getting rid of the top guy/gal by flowing them to the major are DWARFED by the savings they make by leaving them right at the WO. Every year they delay flowing that guy costs them a year of longevity for a FO and a CA at the WO which costs them what? $2 an hour for each of them?

FO pay at the WO starts at $50 an hour and goes up to $56 at year four. That’s less than $2 per year per year increase.
Similarly, CA pay goes up about $2 a year as well, so the cost to the WO of your seniority for the two pilots is $4 per hour per year per year.

So what does it cost AA per year once you do flow? Depends on the aircraft but for a A320 pilot the annual increase is about $9 an hour per year per year for an FO and $2 an hour per year per year.

Heck, they MAKE money for every year they keep you on the WO because that’s one year less they are going to pay you top scale at the major.

BUT DON’T BELIEVE ME. Find your own financial advisor and put the question to them. Let THEM tell you, it’ll be money well spent.

The most economically advantageous thing AA can do is to slow flow to the maximum extent they can that will still attract WO new hires. It isn’t personal with them. It’s just business. And with billions in debt, high debt service costs, a lot of disgruntled stockholders because they’ve had to sell so much stock at a reduced price it will have drastically diluted the earnings per share even when they do become positive, and a reduced sized fleet leading to open gates and slots with loss of market share to the LC/ULCC carriers who will recover more quickly, AAG needs to save every dime they can.

https://i.ibb.co/SvQZZh7/0-C9427-EA-...7-E23-BDB7.jpg

Not bitter about anything nor would it change the facts if I were. Certainly not rooting forward AA to go bankrupt and put pressure on everyone else to match a bankruptcy CBA. But facts are facts. The issue is the value of flow, not my emotions. The FACTS are that flow is a carrot and the stick it is dangling from got a WHOLE LOT LONGER when AA downsized their fleet, gave incentivized early retirement to some of their senior pilots and furloughed a bunch more. 700 pilots that once WOULD HAVE been retired over the next five years are already gone

and there are 1500+ more that have been furloughed. Generally you don’t furlough anybody you are going to bring back in a year because it isn’t cost effective.

And they severely cut back their fleet:


Newsroom - A fond farewell to five fantastic fleets - American Airlines Group, Inc.

Speaking generally you decrease the need for pilots by a factor of 12 for every plane you take out of the fleet. You want to talk Compass? Three or four years ago Delta took 7 E-170s away from Compass and Compass didn’t hire a new pilot for over 6 months. AA just pulled 80 off the line. Do the math. It has nothing to do with my feelings toward Compass.

AA major needs a thousand pilots less than it did. After early retirement they still needed 300 less than they kept. And they’ve got the better part of 1600 on furlough. That means a number of things to flow. There are a lot fewer (700 in fact) pilots retiring in the next five years than there once were. Nobody, doesn’t matter if they have command time on the Space Shuttle, is going to be hired before the furloughed pilots. Let’s say that with the reduced size of the fleet and the reduced retirements they are going to need another 600 pilots a year as the economy improves - and that’s a lot, the annual average for the last two decades is less than half that and don’t forget the people who retired prematurely who now won’t be opening up slots in the future:


Major New Hires 2000-2019. 20 yr total

https://i.ibb.co/7kYNSDt/25-C3-C6-DD...FD70-CB541.jpg

That’s still over three years before there will be ANY AA new hires. So you can impugn my motives all you want, it doesn’t affect me an iota. What you can’t do is beat the math and the numbers.

Anyone working at a WO ought to have a REALISTIC idea about the value (or lack of it) of flow. If you don’t believe me, well and good, hire your own accountant or financial advisor and have THEM explain it to you. You are going to be investing years of your life making the jump to the next level. If you don’t understand the facts, pay someone for a few hours of their time to explain it to you.

Still trying to make it about me rather than the flow? And wanting to play shrink? I give you rational arguments and all you can do is throw insults and psychobabble. Do some research and DO THE MATH. AA DOES NOT have “about a 1000 a year retiring through 2025.” They APPROACH a thousand a year in 2025:

https://i.ibb.co/NFGbCNS/0-C6-AF84-E...76227094-C.jpg

but never really get there, and have fewer retirements before and after. And if AA still had the same fleet size they did a year ago - which they don’t, the excess pilots they have aboard now and the 1500+ furloughed would still take care of their hiring needs to offset retirements until 2024. And then what? How many WO pilots is AAG contractually bound to access when they are hiring? 15 a month? That’s 180 a year. And how many pilots at AA WO regionals? 5200 or so?

So quit with the insults and psychobabble and face facts. Do the research and do the math, or pay someone who knows how to do it for you.

Or at least if you must psychobabble, here’s a psychobabble term you might want to consider:

https://i.ibb.co/HpPqqcW/88-CCEE1-A-...23-EECC784.jpg

Can’t catch a break even on other topics? Maybe he’s not trying to insult you, he’s trying to call you out on your possible arrogant views? You basically constantly say in your posts, “just saying” In this case it’s that you want the others to fail, but you get away with it by saying “you really don’t want them to fail, but just saying they can” You can’t do that. By bringing it up you either are or you aren’t for something. That’s why so many call you out.