But a predictable one.

Seriously, if one researched both Stockholm Syndrome (traumatic bonding) and Battered Wife Syndrome, one could not deny what appears to be very similar manifestations of these psychological conditions in tandem. Add to that an "Association" now so impotent, they have simply become bystanders to their own situation and you have all the ingredients for what is happening.

 

This was just addressed on the town hall meeting. MEC chairman asked (major paraphrasing here) why not flow more than 30 a month if we are overstaffed? Mgmt said that they are concerned about how much disruption flowing over 30 a month would cause. Another question was about Miami: with Cuba opening up and the 175 coming online way ahead of schedule, any chance of getting more Miami flying? The answer was that they wanna keep most of the flying in DFW and ORD, something about keeping reliability high, blah-blah-blah

 

This is what I saw:

Shoutout to management and labor for bringing the 175 on the way they did [blood money].

Doug: More kudos for getting the 175.

Sam: Special thanks to Pedro and Dee temples for treating employees as humans and not numbers. Fleet plan? Envoy has awesome performance and low attrition - we have more warm bodies and actually recruiting. So why dont we get airplanes?

KH: We have 40 175s arriving and Envoy is positioned to get more airplanes. Envoy has reliability "knocked out of hte park" and costs so the airplane should be arriving.

Sam: Previous management did everything they could to minimize the flow. Explains limit of 50%/30 meters. Given Envoy has excess staffing, the full flow should be going.

RI: More than 30 causes a disruption at the size of an airline like Envoy. Plan for 50% of AA hiring classes to be flow through COMBINED from Envoy, PDT and PSA. 30 a month is the plan

=======================
1) Why all the under guarantee lines, tons of reserves not flying, and ZERO TIME LINES if our staffing is so tight?

2) The envoy flow (as directed through arbitration) is for envoy pilots to occupy 50% of all new hire positions at AA (metering withstanding). NOT 50% including all other wholly owned airlines.

This management team is not to be trusted in the least! Contracts are barely even a suggestion of how things should be run.

 

It's a sad day that an actual Ealge Lounger is now attempting to bring their cry fest on to this forum. Take off your bib for two seconds and consider the following:

Our contract states that we have to flow 50% of each AA new hire class per month metered to 30. This next month AA is bringing on 70 new hires. 50% of that would be 35 which allows the company to meter down to 30 if they wanted...and so they have. None of that is in violation of our contract. So what's your problem?

Second, flowing 30 per month is hardly a tragedy although you fellas over on eagle lounge would cry if you were handed a brick of gold. 30/month is still over 300 a year. Go ask the PSA boys to cry for you...they get 5 per month. Go ask the boys over at Republic, Commutair, TSA, Gojets, or anywhere else to cry for you. They get zero flows to anywhere.

Third, you fellas on eagle lounge are experts on crying, complaining, and generally beeyaching about EVERY-SINGLE-THING. But come up with solutions for once. First, explain how flowing 30 in a month that AA hires 70 is in violation of anything. It isn't. Second, explain how flowing 300+ per year is such a sad-sad day.

Finally, tell us how you folks on eagle lounge would handle the recalls at AA. American set May of 2016 as the deadline for all furloughed pilots to return. After that it's game over for all them. A couple of number crunchers at AA recently took a shot in the dark at how many recalls would be coming back by May. Then they estimated based on those numbers they would need 3 months of no new hires and no flows to get all those guys through training. Then those numbers were relayed to Ric and are constantly changing. Come May they could realize they will only actually need 2 months to get them trained, or one.

So what's your solution? American has limited resources just like any other company in the world. They only have so much sim time, so many classrooms, and so many instructors. And they only operate on the same 24 hour clock as the rest of us do. So instead of your usual eagle lounge crying, offer a solution. Keep in mind that telling the recalls to go pound sand is NOT a solution.

Go change your underwear and take a deep breath. Flowing 300 for the year is significantly more than anyone else can say and is more than this company has ever flowed before. That number will be larger after 2016 with no more recalls. If AA hires more than 60 can the company meter to 30? Yes, it's in the contract. Is 30 flows per month horrible? Not by a long shot...that's still a huge number.

 

This is spot on! Well said! This management should not be trusted!

 

Ok, so let's say the 824th pilot flows and we are are only at, say, 40%. But we still flowed 30/month. Would you still defend managements decisions?

Here's an excerpt from the agreement;

b. The intent of this agreement is to provide 50% of the AA new hire training slots to 824 AE pilots in such a way that the AE operation is not disrupted.

 

@skyvector
I don't know much about the AE flow, but I think they would be upset if AA hired 70 a month instead of 60 for 6 months then ran a class of 50 for 6 months. AA would be hiring the same amount per year but sidestepping some of the flows.

 

Dangerous thoughts, lets focus on honoring the contract. 5 per month over a year is 60 pilots. Putting #60 2 months behind schedule. then 4 months after 2 years . then 6 months after 3 years and so on. In an industry where seniority is everything it is something we cannot stand for. It is not whining, its something bargained for, that needs to be honored. I enjoy working for Envoy, or more like barely working for Envoy (seriously why are we metering?), but these contract provisions need to be fought for, or we set dangerous precedent.

 

Exactly. I would expect this to happen (or a close variation to it at least). Anything they can do to limit the flow as much as possible, they will. After all, there's a "pilot shortage" and they need all the warm bodies they can get, even if they are sitting at home not flying and getting paid.

For those coming here thinking they will flow in 5-6 years, all I can say is buyer beware. Yeah, you will probably flow at some point, but with their latest antics I would advise going elsewhere.

 

Based on this, it would be reasonable to expect then that Envoy will NEVER flow more then 30/month as from a staffing and flying allocation standpoint, Envoy is peaking. AA hires 100/month, 30 from Envoy and that would be the most optimistic scenario going forward.

Excuses are a dime-a-dozen and obviously as anticipated, "the world has changed" again. I'd plan on it to change frequently and probably most often, not for the better.