pitchattitude

Not sure what the other WOs LOA says, but if you go to AA from ENY even “OTS”, you still get the money. Just less because you don’t get as much of the $50K for the two years of penance.

UnstbleApprch

This retention bonus just isn’t very much in the scheme of things. If they want to retain pilots in their pipeline, why not just make them actual AA pilots?

29Eleven

I’m gonna venture to guess that most the people on here cheerleading this deal are pilots who are sure to flow in the next 6 months or lifers. That’s what I’m seeing on Facebook, and I can’t say I blame them because they’re the ones who will benefit most from this. If all the carriers out there come even close to meeting their hiring goals for the next 2-3 years it will be unprecedented hiring numbers. Why would you give up seniority and higher career earnings for the opportunity to get a $30k bonus which will most likely pay out at $18-$20k only to be required to be paid back at $30k in 30 days. This whole package is promoted as a loyalty scheme because AAG really wants us all to work for them. If AA really wanted us to work for them then this package would significantly enhance flow. Envoy touted a 5 year flow for years, something no pilot in property will see. If they wanted to incentivize retention they could have formulated a real flow enhancement to make that happen. AA says their hiring what, 1000 pilots next year? Why not increase flow to start catching everyone up on their lost time due to COVID?

In case anyone needs the reminder- you wear an AA uniform, you fly AA pax, and you do it in an AA owned aircraft. You are all severely underpaid to do all of the above. The fact that they can offer all of you $150k in bonuses and still justify the “regional” model should be evidence of that. AA has the power to get you all in the door sooner if they wanted to, but instead they’d rather give you bonuses and pay you way less. I mean, there’s always the front door to AA, but ask yourself- does this deal promote AA hiring an Envoy pilot that way? They can take CA Smith from Skywest and keep CA Jones at Envoy working for less. If they hire CA Jones that comes with a $70k immediate cost and a loss of years of paying CA Jones substandard wages before paying that $70k.

One last note- $150k sounds like a lot. But you have to remember $70k of that is predicated on you actually getting to AA. 9/11, the retirement age change, 2008, and COVID have all been examples of AA hiring stopping. Get out now and make significantly higher career earnings. Don’t sit around and hope this crazy industry stays afloat long enough for you to flow and cash that $70k check.

pitchattitude

Yeah. There’s a whole union at AA that would have a say in that and that say would be “NO!”

But it is pretty big in the scheme of things if you are probably the top third or so of the seniority list at any of the WOs. Pretty much nothing if you’re not at least the top half.

Honestly this also doesn’t do spit for recruiting either and I don’t know if the ‘Voy can ignore that for long, especially if this ends up driving off a bunch of FOs.

Dumpy

It seems to me that this very well may not solve the attrition problem. What possible reason do we have to vote it down then? Major money for those who get it. If Delta variant becomes Victor-vaccine-resistant variant than everyone stagnates for three years and gets to keep the money when they bail for United. If attrition continues they are forced to make other QOL offers in a few months. They miss, we win. If it solves attrition, it will be because the pilot group as a whole finds the incentives attractive. They lose, we win. They win, we win. I’m fuzzy here on how we lose…

Shiner

It’s hard to believe there’s this much resistance to an LOA that hands over this much cash for basically nothing but loyalty.

If you weren’t planning on staying at Envoy, you lose nothing with this LOA. Have interviews lined up at LCCs and cargo carriers? Great, enjoy the extra $500/month from pay band C while you wait for your class date.

If you think you can get LCC pay rates and work rules at Envoy, you are delusional. We don’t own our flying, we carry fewer passengers, and are an easier job to get. If you want to work for an LCC/ACMI, by all means, go get that job. But a lot of Envoy pilots are not interested in that step. It’s major or bust, which can take some time.

It’s understandable a lot of FOs are frustrated by the stagnation and are upset that they’ll have to wait a few years for the biggest payoff in the LOA. But I’ve got news for you guys, most of the senior people this benefits watched as most of the LOAs and bonuses were aimed at getting people in the door. New hire bonuses, FO pay scale raises, displacement pay override, and CA pay at award were things the senior folks never got. They didn’t threaten to torpedo those deals because they understood it was needed to get people in the door.

Now it’s their turn to eat in exchange for their loyalty to the company over the years. If you don’t want to stay, fine, don’t take the money. But don’t take a life changing amount of money from other pilots cause there’s not enough in it for you. That’s just shortsighted and wrong.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

29Eleven

Explain how this program solves any of the real problems at Envoy. Envoy lags in pay rates, soft pay, reserve rules, culture, etc. When COVID hit what happened to bonuses and promises of flow? You don’t think your victor variant scenario would affect this deal? Envoy made flow promises for years. Now, when AA is about to start hiring like crazy there is real adjustment to flow to make up for failed promises. What happened to Charlie Bucket? Did the Rona get him? A CFI looking for a job can still go to about any other carrier and see better pay and better work rules. They’ve seen how Envoy handled the past year and they’re now seeing Envoy avoid fixing the real issues again. Why not go to Endeavor and get paid better? They’re gonna flow 20/mo to Delta and I’m betting that agreement doesn’t include the words “the lesser of”.

NoValueAviator

I guess you read my comment as thinking we shouldn't adopt the LOA. I'm neutral on that here.

I think the company is shooting themselves in the foot as usual. Maybe they look across the table at the MEC reps (who are about to flow) and say, "how can we appeal to pilots like these" while failing to realize they're responsible for staffing the airline... from the bottom, and that almost all of their attrition is coming from the bottom half the list. Amusingly, the people MOST targetted for retention are the ones who were on track for a 4.5 yr. flow (mid-late '16 hires) who weren't going anywhere anyway.

If I was going to make a statement in support of this, I guess I'd say we may as well take their money if they're going to be chumps with it, it's better off buying our '16 hires Breitlings to wear in the 321 sim for having to sit an extra year. The argument against it is losing leverage but our leverage is senior FO attrition (these guys are still 5+ years out from flowing) and co's inability to find qualified newhires (does nothing to address that).

Dumpy

There are several FO reps who word has it are leaning towards voting no. I understand the agnosticism of someone who doesn’t intend to be around to benefit from this, but it would be absolute lunacy to greatly harm hundreds of us because some FOs are getting jobs at Frontier. My post wasn’t focused at you so much as it is focused at those potential no votes.

pitchattitude

l could certainly see this. While it doesn’t help them, it doesn’t hurt them and like other have said the company will have to come back to the table because this does nothing to help where the real attrition is or to help replace them.