Its time to negotiate a better flow
 

With AA hiring 50 a week envoy needs to renegotiate the flow!

Rumor has it there’s an offer from the company to increase the flow numbers but there’s string attach to it.

And rumor has it the string is… ????

Are you referring to the extra flows if we hit our (lack of) attrition numbers?

If they don’t, there won’t be anyone left. It’s going to be tough for them to staff it with higher flow, but it would keep a lot more here.

if they really want to keep people, start giving a bonus ,paid now , that contractually guarantees a 5.5 year flow. It would keep most here for 5.5 years, the airline would be staffed, and the flow would actually be good.

If they really want to keep us here give us pay seniority at AA. U waste 6 years at Envoy and flow you start at 6 year 737 pay at American.

Interesting point, what are you willing to give up for that? To add to your statement, the cadets should also get the same starting from when they joined the program. Can this be retroactive.

That's not seniority, that's longevity, and anything that requires modifying the APA contract (which that would), will require APA ratification.

The reality is that all WOs are going to find themselves seriously lacking for pilots over the next year or two, in particular those pilots like instructors and LCAs who have the resume horsepower to move on to bigger and better things. No LCAs? No airline in pretty short order.

Pilots everywhere are leaving for Legacy carriers because the only thing that really matters in accumulating seniority (longevity is nice and all, but seniority is what gets you QOL in the long term) on a mainline list.

Easy solution? Operating 76 seat aircraft on a mainline list. AA, for its part, has been going to opposite direction and getting rid of Group 1 aircraft, and it's not uncommon for me to park next to a DAL 717 at most of our SE destinations.

UAL has indicated a desire to reduce 50 seat aircraft and I see a lot of Airbuses.

A realistic flow will help reduce the hemorrhage of pilots to ULLCs. But I think it’s a long way before things reach critical mass and implode even if they don’t change things. It’s still cheaper to pay lobbyists and buy off politicians than it is to pay pilots a better wage.

The problem is that the AAG business model REQUIRES regional feed and they DON’T (at least not yet) need flow. They can (at least at present) meet their mainline new hire needs by hiring ex military, hiring away competitors regional pilots, and hiring ULCC people who are still junior enough to be tempted. But increasing the rate of acquisition of their own regional pilots would just hurt their bottom line. They’d much rather hurt their competitors bottom lines by stealing their pilots than make it harder to keep their own regionals fully staffed.

And I really think if F9 and NK do something about their ludicrous first year pay, a lot of regionals are going to lose a lot of reasonably senior people.


https://i.ibb.co/FX535cJ/12438-F39-5...5-A2-E7579.jpg

This will be interesting to watch play out.

There is a cost benefit point at which increasing the flow is beneficial. Problem is it is REALLY hard to figure that point. Flow is about keeping pilots at the wholly owned as long as possible before they go to AA. In the current environment it is obvious flow is WAY too far away to keep those who have the qualifications and inclination to go elsewhere.

It is probably going to take a combination of better pay/retention bonuses and increasing flow to keep the WOs staffed.

The other issue of GUARANTEEING a flow time is that AA has to need the pilots at mainline and not as much so at the regional. And that has never been what flow is about. It’s always been about staffing the regional feed. I don’t want to say never, but the majors will never have a problem with staffing.

Easy, we just have to change one word. Per Month to Per Class.

It’s that easy is it?

They’ll need something more substantial than this. AA/‘Voy is going to be up ****** creek soon if everyone continues to leave for United and Jet Blue.

I know of at least a dozen that all interview at UA in the next 30 days. Their recruiting department went from 0-60 really quick. Whatever they’re doing, they’re doing it right. If you want to move on, definitely get your UAL apps in.

They are interviewing 96 a week

That means less than 40% who interviewed will get a hired

That's not how it works.
Well, sort of. But they might give 90% CJOs. Bunch of them are interviewing everywhere.

That model only works if no one else hires WO pilots. At my shop, there's a LOT more leaving to DAL, UAL, FDX, etc. Probably the only reason they haven't metered flow is because the moment they do that the only thing they'd accomplish is incentivizing more pilots to leave for other carriers.

Ha! No, as a broad market segment they're just going to go after 1,000 hour R-ATP CFIs. I mean, the 320 was designed in Europe around a 250 TT MPL FO. Heck, maybe universities just swap out their CRJ trainers for 320s and everyone can graduate with a type. Get the LCCs to sponsor the hardware.

All of which exacerbates my point above, regionals are going to start being squeezed from both ends.

On that we agree.

I mean, in the short term that would solve one problem, but in very short order Envoy would cease to function because you'd have no Captains.

The WO regionals are between a rock and a hard place with regard to attrition, be it Flow or OAL.

My point was more the process by which the change would come about. Like you pointed out, that much increase in flow would cripple the regional. But as I pointed out, flow is not about staffing AA, but the WO regionals that feed it. It is a balancing act, but unlike figuring the CG on an RJ, no one knows where the balance point is.

On the contrary, if flow became real and was quicker, and not a 6-8 year thing, the line would be out the door to get the job. Make it a 1.5 years as CA and then flow, and watch how fast they line up for the job. Upgrade as soon as you make minimums, then 1.5 as CA, and boom you're eligible to flow. That could drop it down to a 3 year flow for a new FO....(4 would be more realistic).
You'd be perpetually training new hires, but you'd have pilots in the seats, and flights going out on schedule which other regionals won't.

The bolded assumes that you'd have enough of an instructor and LCA cadre to actually keep that training process moving. In PSA's experience, they can't seem to keep enough of either around. Not every airline is stacked with the lifers who drunk the koolaid about how special they are in their 145s.

>ITT people figure out what some of us have known all along

Flow is next to worthless, AA will pile in outside hires/.mil and bury you in the bottom 1/4 of the seniority list for your entire career.

OTS or bust.

Two years as captain after IOE is even unsustainable, but I maintain that absolute would be unreasonable. That means check airmen would pretty much have to be lifers. Not going to get the experience you need, through training and get any use out of someone as an instructor in that amount of time. Three years is more realistic.

And while they obviously have to increase training throughput, how are you going to get from where it is now to there?

But flow does have to increase, because if they don’t, they will lose those pilots anyway.

Why can't AA send LCA down to regionals on special assignment?

yes aa is having lca's quit as we speak why does not envoy send our lca's to aa to help our with the flow is better. But I forget there is something called cba and seniority list and on top far's.
Guess you are new.

AA has sent pilots to wo on special assignment before. You seem upset, your associates degree and DUI isn't gonna be enough to get you on a mainline list without flow?

To the OP and everyone thinking we have any kinda negotiation power. 🤣

What is the flow looking like right now? Curious how things compared for the 2014/2015 hires and the whole Charlie Bucket thing. What month/year were the upcoming November flows hired?

really name a few that you know. Seems as you ignored cba and seniority list. SJS pilot aren't you.

JW obviously. Not sure of others.

Fixing the flow might have worked in 2018.

that horse is waaaay out of the barn. The majors are going to consume the regional system in 2022 and something will have to rise in its place.

the captain/lca core to keep the current model going is gone. Dl/ua/aa alone are looking to hire over 5000 pilots. It’s game over. Will be really interesting to see what happens

Yes, but those are the same companies that need the regionals.

Um, negative. Those are the companies that need 76 seat aircraft to operate to support their current business model.

As it's becoming very apparent that the current FFD business model is going to be hard to operate in its current form, another way of operating those aircraft is going to be needed.

It hasn’t changed yet so those 76 AND 50 seat aircraft have to be flown by someone, which is going to be a regional for regional pay, even if the pay finally does see a bit of improvement, it won’t be from flying them at mainline.

And when those "someones" (i.e. Regionals) can't get nearly enough pilots to replace the ones leaving for other jobs to show up to class, or their training throughput is limited because they can't keep LCAs around?

Planes don't magically fly themselves.

jw once he flowed came off our seniority list and was not put back on it.
LCA have to be envoy pilot on the seniority list, now some other carries in the past contracted that ou but never here.

You are wrong. Check your notes. He was a 4/2019 "hire".

“Game over” 😂😂😂. I got an even better line for the regional model after 2022, “Thanks for playing” 😀😀🤣.

Maybe we should petition the airport audio tracks to play “closing time” by Semisonic every hour for 2022.

Hard to see how the regional model can compete. Even ACMIs pay so well these days. 1st year Atlas FOs making 205/hr, and senior CAs making 520/hr for some flights, without doing OT.

That 50/hr for the dream of flowing one day just isn't going to cut it.