It's you guys who are being selective with your facts. Point out how the company has been flowing consistently since taking over from AMR. Talk about 100% flows for most of 2015. 30/month for 2016. That doesn't jive with your selective arguments, does it? Pick anyone of those grievances...none of them are indicative of the flow through. Cat 2? Really? The CBT pay? RAP1 stuff?

Again, most of you will cry and moan all the way up until the moment you flow yourself. Then it's all smiles for the camera, pictures of your AA wings, and so on.

 

Individually they don't equal a stoppage of the flow obviously. But the sheer number of them is indicative of how the management treats us and the contract. So one has to wonder how management would treat us if we get to a critical staffing situation. If we dont work out a reserve agreement then management chooses to unilaterally do the RAP 1 roll out, then it is reasonable to assume that if staffing becomes critical that management could unilaterally impose something that is damaging to the flow. It is a logical thought process.

 

Also, we constantly tell potential new hires that what the flow is doing now isn't indicative of the future. So it won't be a 16 year flow in a few years, but similarly we are in an overstaffed situation which makes it easy to send 30 +, but that isn't indicative of the future where we may become understaffed. Works both ways

 

New hires today have a brain.

 

How do we account for MESA pilots?

 

Ha, no, I don't own any business. My only source of income is envoy, along with my wife's smaller paycheck. I am a junior Captain on reserve, and many of those grievances have my name in the group, and have cost me time away from my kids that the contract said I should have had.

 

People are free to make their own decisions when it comes to their career so let them! Personally, if I were just starting out and was told I could be at the largest airline in the world in 5-6 years I would say sign me up! But that's just me. And before the "envoy salesman" remarks start I'll say straight up this place sucks in a lot of aspects. First year pay sucks, having our contract violated sucks. Lots of things suck. But at the end of the day I can look at those AA pay rates and have something big to look forward to.

Listening to people tell you the flow won't work (and they say it with such certainty) is absurd. The reality is is that it should work. Will it as advertised? Nobody knows for sure 100%. I hope it does. I think it will. I anticipate a few hicups, it's naive to think otherwise. And so what if you don't upgrade and flow in 2.5/5...is a figure such as 3-4/7-8 going to kill you? We're not talking about a flow to Sprit or JB or VA here. We're talking about a flow to an airline that will provide you with a multi-million dollar career and again, the largest airline in the world.

You want to go to Mesa, Blowjets or TSA and then compete with thousands of other applicants for a coveted spot at United or Delta (you can effectively kiss AA goodbye) be my guest. Take the advise of some internet blowhards who are bitter and quite honesty, idiots. Good luck.

 

Just for the record, I think it is possible, if/when they see that new hires are not flocking to envoy, that eventually management will raise FO pay/bonuses even more than they just did. It may work, it may not, other regionals will be trying desperate measures too. I'm not saying the flow won't happen, just that it's delay/disruption is certainly possible, especially when you have a management team that doesn't see the contract the way we see it (ie, as a legal binding document between two parties). Just like CRM, when making an important decision it is better to have all possible information. New hires should be careful to temper expectations in the face of possibly empty promises.

 

Post of the day. All things being equal, whether or not you think you will need the flow, why pass up the opportunity to have flow. Better to work somewhere with flow and not need it than to work somewhere without flow and wish you had it.

One may not view the flow as a 100% guarantee but it is a better guarantee than you may or may not get called for an interview.

 

Your response is interesting and I'm forced to wonder what you know about the pilot supply pipeline. What do you know about the number of pilots in training to be regional airline pilots?