AA CEO on Envoy
 

Excerpt taken from an interview that American Airlines CEO Doug Parker did recently:

On the future of regional carrier Envoy Air:

“They are extremely important to us… The issue we were having with Envoy was their prior cost structure. We didn’t have the opportunity to grow that business because we had other lower-cost growth alternatives. The Envoy team including the pilots figured out a way to become competitive and now here we are delivering new airplanes and they’re back to growing. It was always going to be an important part of American’s feed but it was unclear if it was going to be important and shrinking or important and growing. And thanks to the new contracts in place, it’s important and growing.”


The interview is available on the AA internal company website.

In related news, the next new hire class at Envoy is scheduled to have 25 and I hear over 40 total for the month of January. Meanwhile 30+ will continue to flow each month to AA.

I'm not sure which way you're going with this...but are you proud of this or something?

Where do you work?

Air Wisconsin. And I have some very close friends at envoy.

That's what I thought. I guess we forgot that Air Wisconsin pays mainline wages, right? Move along. We all work for Regionals voluntarily, so get off your high horse.

A 5 second look at your recent post history shows you have a huge grudge against Envoy....strange as you don't even work here. I won't let you derail this thread any further.

This is great news as I am one of those January hires! I'm coming from the pipeline program and couldn't be happier to be at Envoy. Seems like really big things are in store for the company.

In our interview, a Captain talking to us mentioned that everything is already in motion to allow for 2 1/2 year upgrades and that a flow to AA should be no more than 6 years from your hire date. This is due to the new 175's arriving that will open up a whole bunch of Captain slots as current Captains flow over to AA now.

I'm OK with any aircraft assignment but am really hoping for the 175.

Envoy is #1!

It wasn't long ago when EAGLE pilots looked with dismay on RAH et al. I would never give them that treatment (or anyone for that matter), but the question is legit: are you proud of this?

you're kidding about this right?

You seem proud about this. Congrats
And y'all dog on PSA all the time for accepting the the same cost structure AA wanted...... SMH


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Very few envoy pilots are Proud of our contract. In fact the only reason, we ended up with it was because of you ass hats at PSA. Xjet said NO. Republic said NO. Envoy said NO. Then PSA's MEC came out publically and said, "We'll take it!". What we ended up with was nothing like PSA's contract. We said NO to Parker 3 times (twice at MEC level and once via pilot vote) before the envoy pilot group voted yes. Parker did not get the cheap contract he wanted out of us. The PR piece above is just his way of saving face and saying that the flying is returned because of our cost structure and not because of the horrible performance of his lowest bidders and their inability to staff the flying. All of this was done while Parker was holding a knife to our throats and guys like you were yelling, Cut! Cut! Cut!.

The OP isn't proud of our contract. He is happy that after years of stagnation, going from 3,300 pilots to just under 2,000, paying the price to Parker for standing up for ourselves and the industry, watching our upgrade and reserve times skyrocket while pilot groups like PSA who are all to happy to undercut the next guy grew exponentially. Maybe he is just happy that the envoy pilot group isn't being chit on anymore you little prick.

Dude. Seriously?

Maybe you're not seeing my point.

I have far from a grudge for eagle pilots. I have a tremendous amount of respect for your group.
I mathematically cannot come to grips with the numbers you post, 2.5/6, I've seen the seniority lists. I've counted planes, flows, retirements, it doesn't work.

Those numbers sound good to say, but its not true. If it is, by all means feel free to explain it to me.

.........

My orignal intention for this quote...see interpreted quote.

The six year flow seems like it could be realistic. The numbers support it, though they don't allow for much error. The 2.5 year upgrade though? That will take 700+ upgrades to catch that. That one is pretty hard to see coming to fruition. It will drop, but not THAT much.

I'm cautiously optimistic about the flow and upgrade times. I'll be quite happy to secretly hate you for getting a mainline seat in your early thirties while it appears it's taken me a decade more and counting. Congrats on calculating you'll be number 65 on the 787 when you retire you little sh i t, now shut up and drink the beer I bought you.

Yes, dude seriously. Bruh.

I have a lot of respect for the AWA guys. They were hit really hard in the 2005/2006 time frame when their management tried to stand up to United and the Major Airlines Lowest Bidder regional model. And despite their hardships, they don't have a "stab a guy in the back to get ahead" mentality that I have seen so prevalent at other regionals.

Your d-baggery seems to have no limits.

Maybe I am missing something, but 30 pilots flowing per month is 360 per year, or 720 in 2 years. Wouldn't that, combined with attrition, easily move 720+ people out of the way?

Haven't flown with a single pilot here who is "proud" of our contract, specially now that a bunch of other regional have better pay rates than Eagle, I mean, Envoy. We lost vacation so it matches with PSA n PDT, frozen per diem so PSA n PDT catch up, the 4/12 year caps and on and on. The "bribe" was money that we were gonna get anyways from our BK contract. But whatever, water under the bridge, here we are now.

XJT and Republic are completely different animals negotiating wise from PSA/Envoy and you know it. XJT et al voting no means nothing compared to a no vote from PSA or Envoy.

The only thing Envoy said no to before PSA's vote was a true B-scale that any group would've voted down. That was voted down on the MEC level and never got to the pilots so you can get off your high horse on that.

What did you end up with? How is it better than PSA? Please give specific examples, and if possible, please give specific contract sections since I know you are an expert on PSA's contract.

Yes, this makes you seem credible.

Can you suggest a better way to respond to a guy that just talked to me like we were a couple of college freshman pledging a fraternity?



I would like to point out though, instead of actually contributing to this discussion, all you have really done is stood against the wall and thrown out insults without anything really important to say.


Do you have anything of importance to add or are you just going to continue to give me vague insults?

If you Envoy pricks hadn't voted in such a big concessionary contract to get a supposed flow, you wouldn't be dragging the rest of the regionals down.

They have stated they want to upgrade just north of 200 pilots this year, meaning that's 500+ in 2017 they would have to upgrade...so yes, you are right, but something still does not add up. Five hundred upgrades would be quite a feat, but does that sound doable to you?

Please explain to everyone how we voted in a concessionary contract to get a flow agreement.

I have given up trying to add any kind of intellectual response to you guys. I am just surprised how an adult thinks that name-calling somehow proves his point. Anyone buying snake-oil that management is selling is not very smart. Anyone claiming projections about years into the future is fact, is also not very smart.

Well, you are kinda right about the math not working on the 2.5/6. I ran some numbers recently and IF it works out and thats a big IF it will only work for a small group of pilots. The 2.5 I definitely think is a long shot but I do think we could see 6 year flows from new hires.

At 30 per month with a 1950 pilots thats a 5.5 year flow. When its gets slowed to the last step thats an +8 year flow.{those flow numbers are with EVERYONE staying at envoy and not going to another airline/not flowing} So, IF AA doesn't stop hiring the 6 year number for SOME PILOTS will happen. If you look at their mandatory retirements then I think we all will agree AA will continue to hire over the next 10 years. Now, I haven't looked at the upgrade time, but with the flows for the next to years I think we could easily be looking at three years.

Anyone interested in the article, here it is...

http://www.star-telegram.com/news/business/aviation/sky-talk-blog/article48915540.html

Actually everyone as of October 2011 had flow rights to AA via the bankruptcy contract. This was before Parker stuck his stick in us.

He isn't interested in the facts any more than Pagey is. Emb145 has moved on to "Bigger and Better Things" but has such low confidence in his decision, finds himself constantly involved in subjects about envoy. He hopes that envoy's flow will fail so he will feel justified in his decision to leave.

Some of these fish are trying to be the big fish in a little pond. They jumped into a bigger pond to sling gear and lost their left seat soap box. Now they're back like the guys that graduated high school with no future prospects but continue to hang around trying to be the cool older guy impressing the freshmen and sophomores.

Saying "Yes, sir" must be galling.

You said it better than me. That was a very good way to describe it.

For someone hired right now seniority would be about 1970 most Jr captain is about 1170. The company announced 200 upgrades and 300 flows next year. But then later raised the flow closer to 360-400. So i am assuming that they will need more upgrades. Say 250. And with alot of high time and military newhires recently and a few Sr FO's going to LLC's assume Fo attrition to be 50 next year. That leaves 500 FO's over a year and a half that need to upgrade, die, retire or move on. I'm going to assume after first year that attrition will be only about 10 per year. If the company stops shrinking and has a little growth from planes returning from xjet and tsa management has said. Upgrades should match or exceed flow in 2017. IF that number is 360. That only leaves 130 FO's to upgrade over the first 6 months of 2018. So it is mathematically possible. While it does require AA to continue to hire 60 or more per month and Envoy to stop shrinking it is possible. The question is what will happen to the 145's at xjet and tsa. AAG has an option to move them as they come to heavy check or 2 years which ever is first. The planes started going well over a year ago. But will they move them and where to are un known. But envoy currently has a trained staff of 145 pilots flying less than line guarantee. So it would be possible to add flying without changing staffing.

Those numbers sound good. At least as good as they did in 2000 to the Eagle pilots.


I hope I'm wrong but betting on flow agreements in my experience makes as much sense as betting on upgrade due to proposed aircraft orders.

If your argument is anything can happen, then yes I agree. Sure, if something awful happens that prevents the majors from hiring even with record retirement numbers, yeah you won't flow. But you also won't be hired off the street, as they aren't hiring.

If your argument is "the flow doesn't work, look at what happened to the guys in 2000," I think that's disingenuous. The flow has always worked, AA just has to hire.

After rereading it came across more negative than I meant.

I put in some years at Eagle and have friends that stayed and some that left. Hope the best for all.

Fair enough. Betting on anything in this career is a crapshoot. Can't depend on what upgrades, fleet size or flow are now or projected to be in the future.

Some people after years of training and tons of money are actually happy when they get their first airline job. Really.

Crongrats Man! Don't let the negativity get you down. Its been a long road in the regionals this last decade. Enjoy your trips and your crews.

Cujo/Mason? Is that you?