Envoy to get 100% flow to AA.
06-17-2015 | 01:38 PM
#41
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I wish you the best of luck, but you are acting like you just discovered oil on the surface of the moon.
You are not charting unknown waters here. Everybody networks. Everybody attends job fairs. Everybody waits 3 hours in line for a 5 minute handshake with a mainline recruiter. Everybody collects stacks of recommendation letters. None of this is new, and none of it gets you any closer to a mainline job. Sure, it beats doing nothing. But it's akin to spinning your car's wheels in the mud.
The only way to truly increase your chances is if you are part of the friends and family plan. Assuming you don't have any military flight time. Other than that, you are just one out of thousands. And those other thousands are also networking and getting their face out there.
Too many of us think we are doing something nobody else is doing. That is a residual effect of our jobs. We sit in the cockpit with either a Captain or an FO but never work directly with another person who is our direct peer. So you fly around thunderstorms perfectly, make smooth landings, great radio calls, etc....and after a while you begin to get it in your head you are the best at what you do and nobody else can do it as well. You don't have another FO sitting next to you doing the same job for you to compare with. Or another Captain if that is your position.
That spills over into other areas of life. So you network and do a bunch legwork to get that mainline interview. You begin to think you are the only one doing it. You get your letters together and polish your resume and think nobody is doing it as well as you are.
Most pilots will spend years trying their best to get out of the Regionals...PIC or no PIC. An eventual job with an LCC like Frontier will be more likely to happen than United or Delta. And even then that will take a good 5 years of Regional flying to materialize. Some may get lucky, sure. Happens all the time. That doesn't mean that we should all count on a large heaping of luck to move on. If you have the opportunity to work for an airline that has a true flow, and that flow is WORKING as advertised or better....that would be a better choice than going to work for an independent Regional with no flow and rolling the dice.
You are not charting unknown waters here. Everybody networks. Everybody attends job fairs. Everybody waits 3 hours in line for a 5 minute handshake with a mainline recruiter. Everybody collects stacks of recommendation letters. None of this is new, and none of it gets you any closer to a mainline job. Sure, it beats doing nothing. But it's akin to spinning your car's wheels in the mud.
The only way to truly increase your chances is if you are part of the friends and family plan. Assuming you don't have any military flight time. Other than that, you are just one out of thousands. And those other thousands are also networking and getting their face out there.
Too many of us think we are doing something nobody else is doing. That is a residual effect of our jobs. We sit in the cockpit with either a Captain or an FO but never work directly with another person who is our direct peer. So you fly around thunderstorms perfectly, make smooth landings, great radio calls, etc....and after a while you begin to get it in your head you are the best at what you do and nobody else can do it as well. You don't have another FO sitting next to you doing the same job for you to compare with. Or another Captain if that is your position.
That spills over into other areas of life. So you network and do a bunch legwork to get that mainline interview. You begin to think you are the only one doing it. You get your letters together and polish your resume and think nobody is doing it as well as you are.
Most pilots will spend years trying their best to get out of the Regionals...PIC or no PIC. An eventual job with an LCC like Frontier will be more likely to happen than United or Delta. And even then that will take a good 5 years of Regional flying to materialize. Some may get lucky, sure. Happens all the time. That doesn't mean that we should all count on a large heaping of luck to move on. If you have the opportunity to work for an airline that has a true flow, and that flow is WORKING as advertised or better....that would be a better choice than going to work for an independent Regional with no flow and rolling the dice.
On one hand you guys all claim the Envoy flow is just a back-up plan and something "nice to have in your back pocket" if the traditional methods of advancement in the industry don't pan out and then when a pilot does exactly that, i.e., successfully go to where THEY may want to, you belittle that as a foolish move because it isn't to where YOU think they should go (to Envoy and then AA via a supposedly certain flow-through) and THAT is "rolling the dice" ?
Good lord, we've pole-vaulted into the surreal. I guess when a tenacious salesmen grabs on, he doesn't let go............
06-17-2015 | 01:44 PM
#42
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Joined: Jun 2008
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The flow through contract sounds great, but why is Envoy struggling to attract more pilots than other regional airlines? Yes, there's a pilot shortage, but other regional airlines are filling their new hire classes while Envoy gets less than 30 a month. Also, why is Envoy closing bases everywhere (down to only DFW and ORD)? For the airline to be more appealing to potential new hires it has to prove that it can keep its domiciles open and reassure everyone that it won't get any worse. Not being negative here, just honestly curious.
It's FAR less then that. The FACTS are that regardless of the present sales letters and song-and-dance routines of a handful of snake-oil hucksters here, Envoy WILL shrink. Wilsons own numbers demonstrate that in the very letter that included his projections. AAG has made ZERO additional long-term commitments to Envoy's fleet renewal since the 40 E-175's and Envoy is bringing in a fraction of the pilots needed to support a steady, long-term flow that will benefit any pilot hired today or later.
The foundations of all these projections and claims simply isn't there and until they are, it's all smoke and mirrors by a handful who themselves are the ones with ulterior motives and hidden agendas.
06-17-2015 | 01:53 PM
#43
Banned
Joined: Jun 2008
Posts: 8,350
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How many other regionals have as many pilots per month going to a "LEGACY" carrier as Eagle does (with our Flow + limited outside Legacy attrition)??
Answer = 0
We are putting more pilots at Legacy carriers than anyone else right now. Vast majority being AA.
You can't argue with that. It's a fact.
Answer = 0
We are putting more pilots at Legacy carriers than anyone else right now. Vast majority being AA.
You can't argue with that. It's a fact.
So far, those components don't exist and THAT is FACT. Like your fellow sales associate said, "the world changes" and thus what happens "right now" may not be able to happen in the future. 6 years is a LIFETIME in this business in regards to changing worlds and equating what is happening at Envoy right now to the remainder of the arbitrational awarded "824" pilots is NO GUARANTEE of ANYTHING for those subject to a simple contractual agreement like the Protected Pilots Agreement (PPA) months or years down the road. Mix that in conjunction that Envoy will be morphing drastically into a different feed provider due to significant contraction and you can't even guarantee Envoy will exist in 6 years in present form, let alone smoothly flowing a new-hire of today.
06-17-2015 | 01:53 PM
#44
Pilot
Joined: May 2015
Posts: 149
Likes: 0
30/month ?
It's FAR less then that. The FACTS are that regardless of the present sales letters and song-and-dance routines of a handful of snake-oil hucksters here, Envoy WILL shrink. Wilsons own numbers demonstrate that in the very letter that included his projections. AAG has made ZERO additional long-term commitments to Envoy's fleet renewal since the 40 E-175's and Envoy is bringing in a fraction of the pilots needed to support a steady, long-term flow that will benefit any pilot hired today or later.
The foundations of all these projections and claims simply isn't there and until they are, it's all smoke and mirrors by a handful who themselves are the ones with ulterior motives and hidden agendas.
It's FAR less then that. The FACTS are that regardless of the present sales letters and song-and-dance routines of a handful of snake-oil hucksters here, Envoy WILL shrink. Wilsons own numbers demonstrate that in the very letter that included his projections. AAG has made ZERO additional long-term commitments to Envoy's fleet renewal since the 40 E-175's and Envoy is bringing in a fraction of the pilots needed to support a steady, long-term flow that will benefit any pilot hired today or later.
The foundations of all these projections and claims simply isn't there and until they are, it's all smoke and mirrors by a handful who themselves are the ones with ulterior motives and hidden agendas.
06-17-2015 | 02:03 PM
#45
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Joined: Oct 2014
Posts: 2,137
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That's another thing that I'm trying to understand. The non-wholly owned airlines combined do more flying for American Airlines than PSA, Piedmont, and Envoy. With the projections of retirements through 2025, AAG would not just have to hire from the three WO's. Am I right in saying that they may have to hire from elsewhere as well? And not everyone from the regionals wants to go to AAG; in fact many would go to United, Delta, UPS, FedEx, JB, etc...
You're the CEO of an airline in need of pilots over the next decade. Which regional airlines are you going to attempt to drain of their pilots? Yours or someone elses?
06-17-2015 | 02:10 PM
#46
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Joined: Jun 2008
Posts: 8,350
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That's another thing that I'm trying to understand. The non-wholly owned airlines combined do more flying for American Airlines than PSA, Piedmont, and Envoy. With the projections of retirements through 2025, AAG would not just have to hire from the three WO's. Am I right in saying that they may have to hire from elsewhere as well? And not everyone from the regionals wants to go to AAG; in fact many would go to United, Delta, UPS, FedEx, JB, etc...
Another aspect to consider is what those who are NOT AA wholly-owned regionals do and that's cover market share for AA that the wholly-owneds cannot. If they disappear, who flies that feed ? Someone has to and the fact is, that the WO's don't now and won't in the future have those pilots. I think it's obvious all that is occurring now is the next phase of the contraction of the regionals and that's "consolidation". First, they will continue to kick the can by trying to do more with less and shuffling their critical commodity (pilots) around a bit. Once that tack is exhausted, the next phase means carrier consolidation, but ultimately the regional industry will shrink to perhaps half its former size, but with a majority of 64-76 aircraft. If and when that becomes threatened, then actual consolidation within the mainline carrier itself is likely the final solution with the entry level position a Group 1 type job at the mainline flying the smaller jets.
Ultimately, most present regional pilots will find themselves at a particular legacy through various phases of consolidation and then acquisition. Running after the first carrot in the process in the long-run like the Envoy/Piedmont flows is a pre-mature knee-jerk reaction at this juncture. I think as the next 18 months goes on, a better picture will emerge and chasing quick upgrades or projected flows now is unadvisable, but hey........that's simply my opinion.
06-17-2015 | 02:15 PM
#47
Pilot
Joined: May 2015
Posts: 149
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My advice to you is to listen to eaglefly's very rational advice. To me, the puzzle is so simple, they are not going to destroy their own feed by draining their own wholly owned airlines of all their pilots. The flow works in AA's best interest right now because they need to shrink Envoy to 45 airplanes (today's number which can change). Once they are shrunk to whatever size they deem appropriate, thats the end of the flow.
You're the CEO of an airline in need of pilots over the next decade. Which regional airlines are you going to attempt to drain of their pilots? Yours or someone elses?
You're the CEO of an airline in need of pilots over the next decade. Which regional airlines are you going to attempt to drain of their pilots? Yours or someone elses?
There will be thousands of retirements out there in the next few years and Envoy will not be the only one supplying American or others with the necessary pilots.
06-17-2015 | 02:16 PM
#48
Gets Weekends Off
Joined: Dec 2005
Posts: 439
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Have you applied to United and Delta? How has that worked out for you so far? You claim Jr CAs are moving to better places....where? Spirit? JetBlue? That may be better than the Regionals...but it's not mainline. And even then, it's difficult to get on with those airlines.
There are 10,000+ pilots applying to the 3 majors left in the United States. Many of those 10,000+ are already working for an LCC, have more PIC time than most Regional pilots have Total Time...and an Airbus type rating to boot.
You think that you and every other wide eyed Regional pilot will some how magically skip ahead of all of them? How? Because you "really, really want the job!"?
We can be cynical about the flow until we turn blue in the face. And that is fine. Flow was never a tool of any kind in the past. The old AA back in the 90s and early 2000s didn't care about flow nor did they want it. They used it as a way to protect their pilots from furlough (letter 3) and it was never intended to actually flow any significant amount of pilots from Eagle.
That was then. This is now. To quote the infamous Scott Kirby: The world has changed. AA still prefers military pilots but they don't have an aversion to Regional pilots the way they did back in the 90s. The new AA (ex-US Airways) understands what a flow can mean for them going forward. And they have gone "all in" so to speak with Envoy and to a lesser extend Piedmont. Only because Piedmont is smaller.
You guys who keep dismissing the flow based on how it worked or didn't work 20 years ago are committing a huge fallacy. The worse thing a professional can do in any industry is be stuck in the past and not adapt to the changing environment around them.
Case and point: Still thinking that the majors will come barrel rolling through your bedroom wall when you hit the magical "1,000 hours of PIC time!".... it doesn't work that way. It never has and even less so today. Living with that in your head will only mean you are at the back of the line as your peers flow up to mainline with no interview.
Take it or leave it. People can listen to trolls like eaglefly who have ulterior motives or they can be smart about what Regional they choose to fly for. Choosing any Regional because of quickie upgrade times is a very bad move. Going to work for Mesa or Republic is a very bad move.
There are 10,000+ pilots applying to the 3 majors left in the United States. Many of those 10,000+ are already working for an LCC, have more PIC time than most Regional pilots have Total Time...and an Airbus type rating to boot.
You think that you and every other wide eyed Regional pilot will some how magically skip ahead of all of them? How? Because you "really, really want the job!"?
We can be cynical about the flow until we turn blue in the face. And that is fine. Flow was never a tool of any kind in the past. The old AA back in the 90s and early 2000s didn't care about flow nor did they want it. They used it as a way to protect their pilots from furlough (letter 3) and it was never intended to actually flow any significant amount of pilots from Eagle.
That was then. This is now. To quote the infamous Scott Kirby: The world has changed. AA still prefers military pilots but they don't have an aversion to Regional pilots the way they did back in the 90s. The new AA (ex-US Airways) understands what a flow can mean for them going forward. And they have gone "all in" so to speak with Envoy and to a lesser extend Piedmont. Only because Piedmont is smaller.
You guys who keep dismissing the flow based on how it worked or didn't work 20 years ago are committing a huge fallacy. The worse thing a professional can do in any industry is be stuck in the past and not adapt to the changing environment around them.
Case and point: Still thinking that the majors will come barrel rolling through your bedroom wall when you hit the magical "1,000 hours of PIC time!".... it doesn't work that way. It never has and even less so today. Living with that in your head will only mean you are at the back of the line as your peers flow up to mainline with no interview.
Take it or leave it. People can listen to trolls like eaglefly who have ulterior motives or they can be smart about what Regional they choose to fly for. Choosing any Regional because of quickie upgrade times is a very bad move. Going to work for Mesa or Republic is a very bad move.
This is spot on. My personal opinion is that you're going to see envoy become the place to be in the very near future. Is it a perfect place now? No, far from it. After all, it's still a regional that is going through pains associated with the closing of bases, lost airplanes, and temporary stagnation. But if your goal is to fly for one of the big 3, then this is the best option with the best odds. As much as it pains some people on here to see, AAG has a huge investment in the future of envoy.
There are the obvious trolls who spew false numbers, absolute worse case scenarios, and outright lies because the failure of envoy is best for whatever position they may be in. Sad but true and it becomes a potential applicants' responsibility to sift through the BS when browsing this site for info.
06-17-2015 | 02:20 PM
#49
Gets Weekends Off
Joined: Dec 2005
Posts: 439
Likes: 0
The flow works in AA's best interest right now because they need to shrink Envoy to 45 airplanes (today's number which can change). Once they are shrunk to whatever size they deem appropriate, thats the end of the flow.
You're the CEO of an airline in need of pilots over the next decade. Which regional airlines are you going to attempt to drain of their pilots? Yours or someone elses?
You're the CEO of an airline in need of pilots over the next decade. Which regional airlines are you going to attempt to drain of their pilots? Yours or someone elses?
"That's the end of the flow." What are you a 25 year old lawyer now? You clearly have no clue or have no problem spewing lies about our flow thru agreements or our flow through arbitrated awards.
06-17-2015 | 02:26 PM
#50
Banned
Joined: Jun 2008
Posts: 8,350
Likes: 0
My advice to you is to listen to eaglefly's very rational advice. To me, the puzzle is so simple, they are not going to destroy their own feed by draining their own wholly owned airlines of all their pilots. The flow works in AA's best interest right now because they need to shrink Envoy to 45 airplanes (today's number which can change). Once they are shrunk to whatever size they deem appropriate, thats the end of the flow.
You're the CEO of an airline in need of pilots over the next decade. Which regional airlines are you going to attempt to drain of their pilots? Yours or someone elses?
You're the CEO of an airline in need of pilots over the next decade. Which regional airlines are you going to attempt to drain of their pilots? Yours or someone elses?
If I were an entry-level prospective pilot, I'd make my choice of a regional as one based more on tangible factors then hypothetical ones and if I were already at a given regional (at least one that flies RJ's for a legacy), I'd stay put and let the industry evolve more to get a better handle of what is a good next move, if any.
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