Pilot Recruiting
 

Just saw this and wondered what the good, the bad, and the ugly of all this will be?

Pilot Recruiting Incentive

Attachment 6317

Without reading the details, I’ll guess that they are including the flow bonus in that. While it’s not technically a lie, they aren’t adding that $120,000 of the $175K is spread out indefinitely to your unknown flow date.

Won't stop someone from biting when recruiting also tells them they'll flow in 6 years.

The bad and the ugly start with the numbers are misleading and gets worse from there. You will be on reserve at a company that has possibly the worst reserve rules in the industry. DO NOT do this if you plan to commute. The misleading part is if you leave the company any time before three years for anywhere besides American, you will have to pay back the $30K captain bonus and if you leave for anywhere besides American AT ANY POINT, you will not see the rest of $120K. Don’t expect that you will get to American via the flow. The numbers are pretty much impossible for a new hire.

I think that’s probably enough.

Read through the history of this forum. Nothing has changed except the $150K retention bonus that is designed to keep captains at the company until they make it to American, but that is a very small window of people and if you’re not already on property and a captain or close to upgrading, it won’t help you.

We’re so short on pilots there’s no one flying that plane!!!

The bad and the ugly start at flight schools now. ATP is now asking for 84k if you want to start that is with airline sponsorship. A 172N is now for sale for 100k, it is $200 per hour wet without the CFI

I would not become a pilot if I have to start today unless someone is going to give me 100k + a paycheck to pay that 100k back.

How is this announcement different
 

How is this different than the original retention bonus offering. Insert that folks with 750* hours of 121 time can get an additional bonus. Then next sentence they state, that anyone with 145/170 type get an extra 7.5k. do 121 time.in a Q or CRJ still get an additional experience bonus?

That part of the bonus is not, but those were not RETENTION but HIRING bonuses. Having not seen the contract, that part is likely pro rated if one leaves the company between one year and two years and commitment complete at two years.

The first $30K of the rest of the $150 is THREE years, which even for someone coming in as a DEC is a LONG time and has NO pro rating. The rest of the $120K has even more strings attached and I venture to say MOST who get hired as a DEC will never see it.

^long way from flow for sure

What is the projected flow time for a new hire?

Not fast enough. SWAG is 7 years.

March 2030 is showing latest alpa list for most junior guy

In the next 5 years, it is expected that the major airlines are going to hire 22,000 pilots.

Current flow projections are completely useless.

That 22000 numbers has been mentioned for the last 6 years

the legacies alone did 623 new hires last month. That’s well above 22,000 over 5 years. Factor in the LCC and ACMI and it’s not only entirely possible, it becomes highly probable.

7 year flow for a new hire today is absolutely absurd. 10 year minimum.

Nah.
7-8 years is realistic.

Eight (8) new contract violation grievances filed already just this one month. That’s after biweekly meetings and other mitigation practices that usually resolve things before an actual grievance is filed. I’m afraid to ask how many contract violations there were that didn’t end up a grievance.
contract is an 8 year old amendment of a 16 year contract and the company continues to violate the pilot contract regularly. You’d think after 24 years they’d have a pretty good idea what they shouldn’t do…. Nope, they just don’t care, don’t abide by written agreements, and punish their employees who dare speak out.
why would anybody want to work for such a management team?

Excellent point. Explains why they’re backing up the Brinks truck with all these bonuses. Looks like 332.5k in extra $$$ for a new hire FO who has a year or so of 121 experience and stays for the duration. On top of regular pay. You’d think it was cheaper to not abuse your pilot group, but I guess none of us are management material.

This whole thing sounds like a band-aid on a sucking chest wound.

Huh?

I don’t think you understand the bonus.

Read through this thread again. The $182.5K includes the $150K. That’s why I said few who were hired with enough time to qualify would stay to see it.

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.

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.

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

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?

Fllooowwww!!!!!

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

I don't know where he got the number my guess is it's actually lower than that. I would almost always ask every captain I flew with if they had apps out. Almost every one would answer "yes". I would follow it up by asking when was the last time they updated their apps. Almost every single one had to think way too long about when that was. I think knowing flow is around the corner kills a lot of guy's drive.

You must think you're a real hoot.

You miss heard, that's actually the recruiting process for the MesaNaut Academy. The Prison and the Dive Bar actually...

You might want to read the actual careers page advertising the bonuses. The 182.5k is in addition to the 150k.

https://www.envoyair.com/pilots

wow you guys gunna be rich pilots!

And Swayne might have enough money to afford to stay off Instagram and buy his beau a Miata.

miata. 🤣🤣 hilarious

That's false advertising. The word "plus" makes it sound like there are two bonuses.

No where does it say that. It’s the same misleading advertising as the 5 year flow. If you know anything about Envoy, then you know how they spin and interpret what they say, even when it’s in print.

Curious, how do you know it’s false advertising? I’ve seen zero communication from the union or the company stating that they’re not separate. The retention bonus LOA applies to all pilots hired before the end of 2022. Are new hires being required to sign a contract waiving that in order to get the 182.5k?

It's not separate. They're using the same word "earn" as it's used in the retention bonus. Did you already forget that recruiting is telling new hires we have min day credit?