FlyGuy2021

If you think Envoy will exist in it's current state in 7 years, let alone 10, then you are seriously misguided.

The regionals will be mostly gone in 5 years. Every single captain with a decent background (few training failures, no felonies) will be able to get hired by a major airline in 2022. Every FO will be able to upgrade and be hired at a major by the end of 2023. There are simply not enough pilots coming in to backfill. There should be absolutely zero pilots at Envoy by the end of 2023 that are on the seniority list now (unless they have several training failures, a DWI, and no college degree).

New hires in 2022:

AA: 2000
UA: 2100
DAL: 1800
Southwest: 1200
JetBlue: 800
FedEx: 800
UPS: 250

8000+ just at the "good" majors in a single year. That is more than every single regional captain working today.

pitchattitude

What??

Where are you getting 2000 at AA? AA is only 1000 next year.

While I know everyone is ramping up hiring and training, NO airline has consistently trained more than 100 new hires a month. EVER.

They may try but I’d be surprised if even Delta and United get that many through.

But I get your point about available pilots verses jobs. Just don’t think it is really at that point.

highfarfast

And he's also assuming they only hire from the regionals too.

FlyGuy2021

AA said yesterday that they plan to hire 2000. Classes of 45, every week.

Delta has trained over 100 per month for many months in a row a couple times in recent history (2017 and 2018). United is hiring 170+ a month now and training them with no problem. The big problem in the past with AA hiring is that there were simply too many fleets, and with vacancy bids happening every couple months, there was too much internal training to really allow for as many new hires. That isn't a problem anymore. Also, recurrent training at AA increased in duration from 9 months to 12 months, so thousands less recurrent training sessions each year. Combine all of that with the contracted sim time at outside companies in Dallas that AA is using and there are more than enough slots to train well over 100 per month.

I never said that there will not be hiring from the military or part 91/135, but the vast majority will come from the regionals.

I 100% agree that every airline will fall short of these numbers, but the fact is that if you are a Captain at a regional airline today and are not at a major airline by the end of 2022, it is your fault.

Why is it that less than 20% of AA WO pilots have active and complete applications on file with the legacy carriers?

highfarfast

Fllooowwww!!!!!

TransWorld

Just as reference, the largest hiring at an individual airline was 1206 pilots hired by Delta in 2016.

Hiring rates more than that will break all time records. Not say it can’t be done. It has never been done before. Airlines can rent large hotel ballrooms to give classroom training. Simulators, in my mind, will be the bottleneck. More simulators purchased and installed? There is a lead time to build them and install them.

Separately, I have been saying what you are saying for years. I said regionals will have half (10,000 whereas we have 20,000 today) the number of pilots and one fourth the number of regional airlines in a few years. When I predicted that, I was called stupid. I think reality is about to catch up to my predictions.

pitchattitude

Skywest is betting big otherwise, OR they plan to be the only game town. They are pushing for 7000 pilots by the end of next year.

Cujo665

Just an observation, but if AA was so much better, they wouldn't be having to bribe CA's to stay and flow rather than go to an LCC-ACMI. Don't get me wrong, AA is still a great job, it's just that so many others have caught up so close, or in cases like UA/DL/FE/UP surpassed AA... that wasting a few years waiting to flow just isn't worth it in the big picture.

I agree with the rest of your post, and have been saying as much for the past few years. I do think that the training failures, DUI, and other skeletons won't be as big a career killer as you imply depending on when they happened. The older they are, the less important they are. Anything over 5 years will be hirable, and over 10 years, will be a non-issue. As for the degree, most have already dropped the requirement to simply preferred, and by 2023 it won't matter.

Cujo665

Not sure where you're obtaining that number; or why you'd even believe it.

Halon1211

I have heard rumors that Envoy is going to the Department of Correction facility to help recruit pilots that were non-violent offenders to help with keeping bodies in the cockpit.

it an exchange with the California DOC to help prison over crowding and in return Envoy will get some top quality candidates that will go through a 1 year program to get them their ratings and some hours offered by ATP flight school.

the ones with more of a “flight” risk with have additional constraints like day turns only and have to check back in at night. And an exemption from the FAA to remove the crash ax in the cockpit.