What’s the point of FLOW?
 

For many years I wondered whats the point of the flow? Some pilots say “Plan B”, some say only hope to majors (skeletons?), some say only gateway to AA.

However, prior to covid, envoy flow was about to be severely throttled to 15, thus increasing dramatically off the street new hires, making outside regional hiring greater...moreover looking at skywest pilot averages, he or she only spent 3-4 years on property. Much shorter than the made up 5.5 years that will never occur. Last flowed was eagle hire at 8 years. Since no one at envoy has flowed, whats the point? Additionally, some have concluded that other airlines like dal or ual are reluctant to hire envoyers do to thinking of their AA fandom. Thus, little outside attrition exists compared to other regionals.

Wouldn’t the regional prison sentence be shorter without the flow? Just look at other regionals averages!

The point is to keep AA regionals manned, even better if AAG gets a discount in the process. Looks pretty successful to me.

Guaranteed movement of 20-30 from the top to keep the seniority list moving without having to grow. The music has stopped everywhere, but based on how many Envoy guys are getting hired at Fedex (and how many had class dates at DL that got cancelled due to covid), I don't buy the "airline XXX does not like Envoy pilots" argument.

Thus, as the flow per month becomes more and more throttled, there is no incentive to select envoyers for the pool at aa. They would hire from other regionals hurting other majors. AA would hurt themselves at the regional level, Envoy pilots would be the unwanted from every angle

Yeah and there seems to be a subset at the AAG wholly-owned carriers that are happy to wait for it, other opportunities be damned. It's honestly a great deal for AAG. We'll see how all that debt works out but there are some things they have down to a science at American.

Yes it has stopped. But the month to month union comm showed barely if any outside attrition. Less than 10 a month. Always single digits. Also look at the interactive Seniority list. Barely any would be picked up all year at aa outside flow. The “movement” total per month is smaller than the competition at Skywest for example.

The flow has always been a bill of goods sold to keep ENVOY, and subsequently PSA and PDT filled. It has never been about AA.

But please, you’ve just given the THKoolAid a reason to poke his head out.

They know some are too lazy to fill out an app.

False advertising = science

2018 only 8 envoyers got hired outside of flow only a few more than that in 2019. Those are very small numbers.

This will likely change. We had a huge chunk of hires who were on the 4-5 year flow train, and didnt even have apps out nor were they even competitive elsewhere until very recently. And the 8 year guys who were within a year of flowing. Envoy has a pretty unique seniority curve because of the Eagle shrinkage back in the bankruptcy years. You can't compare us to other regionals that are still around and try to compare how many pilots are leaving.

The REAL flow was put in place by the New American because they were smart enough to understand that pilots wants a viable career path with only one interview. Yes, there was a "flow" before at the old Eagle but it didn't put substantial numbers through to AA. The 824 came through only as a remedy.

With that comes the need to hire American Airlines pilots and they controlled that. Thus the high barriers to entry. Being an American pilot on day one of indoc at Envoy is not an easy path to navigate. Those that get through were thoroughly vetted and as I've mentioned many times here before, the criteria was put out and the Envoy recruitment team had to go to work. AAG/Envoy was the initiator of the Pipeline program which was the most innovative thing put into place by any major carrier in the past 20 years. It has kept Envoy supplied with raw talent that had been thoroughly vetted. The ideal Envoy in the future will be 100% pipeline pilots and no more of these lifers who hang around for years and years. The flow thru program was working and hitting on all cylinders. You can't predict things like pandemics and so the flow is TEMPORARILY on hold. American's plan on the other side of Covid19 is one of the most aggressive and well thought out anywhere in the industry.