580750 is the last number selected, and that would appear to have been selected within the last week or so. There's at least a month to month and a half between getting selected and actually going to class, so no telling if 580750 will actually get a class before the AA pilots are required to announce their return before the May cutoff date.

 

IMO I don't think it's bitterness at anyone else's luck. Them's the breaks, we all know how it is in this industry. The problem lies with the decade of stagnation and then the industry turmoil following that era littered with broken promises and heavy handed management operational changes. Add to that the all but admitted awful treatment of the pilot group designed specifically to make our lives miserable.

That's cause enough for bitterness.

 

I agree with what was said before. Thats what i was told back in 99". Its all "futures" just like the stock market.. No one can predict that... Or what flow will be. Pick a airline that fits your needs....

 

You talk like you can't do anything else in this life. Flying is great and all but there is whole world of exciting opportunity out there outside of flying. Flying is best enjoyed as a hobby.

 

All these developments are really interesting and I enjoy the discussion.

At the end, these are all marketing tactics employed to attract talent. Some use flow, others first year pay, yet others sign on bonuses, quick upgrades – whatever. The good news is that there are plenty of good choices. I think the jury is still out there on which one works – or works best.

The biggest fallacy in all of this – and that pilots love to fall into – is the fact that the pilot career is the biggest pyramid scheme known to man-kind. It makes Bernie Madoff like a small time offender who should have gotten away with 30 days of community service.

Everyone is looking at the multi-million dollar career, flying a 777 for 5 days a month and pulling 250K+ a year.

But like any pyramid, it is getting very narrow at the top and not everyone can get that gig.

So proceed with caution on any argument that says: “sacrifice now because there will be a big payout in x years”. Whether that is flow, lower pay rates or any other concessions. If your are financially inclined think of it as an NPV calculation... time value of money and more importantly QoL does matter!!!

Keep in mind that pyramid schemes only work if you can keep bringing people in down below. Airlines are no different. Life is miserable if you are the bottom of the seniority list with no / little movement because airlines cannot hire.

In the past, this wasn’t an issue. There were plenty of wide eyed flyers willing to do whatever it takes. You could easily “Comair” your operations and start over again with the same assets (airplanes) and management team. The beauty is that you reset seniority in the process and start with a lot lower cost. Because of the initial growth it looks like great progression etc. and the machine feeds itself.

Times have changed and bad behavior / reputation is much more persistent than it was in the past. Making up for past mistakes / ruined reputations will be a lot more costly than it was before. And I think you see that in who is being able to attract talent in the current environment.

This argues for WO no messing with flow in the long rune but then again, none of the data/examples discussed so far are really convincing. It will probably take a long time to rebuild that trust. Time will tell if all these tactics will start the hiring engine again.


My advice to new hires is to look at the overall package – and pay is one of the last things on my list.

Go to a place that:

>> attracts candidates and can fill classes. It sucks to be on reserve. And there are many options out there where you can hold a line out of IOE or a few months after. And think about the pyramid scheme dynamics!!!
>> has a base near/where you live. The only thing worse than being on reserve is commuting to reserve.
>> is a place you are comfortable staying for the long term. You never know how all of this play out. Hopefully you are lucky and you move on quickly. But even being 5-6 years at a place you don’t enjoy can be a long time. None of the lifers I meet have planned on becoming a lifer. But life happens and here they are. Hopefully at a place they are enjoying

 

I'm not jealous or bitter, I think it's great. I don't know anyone who is jealous.

Your arguments are mostly true. There were actually 2-year and less upgrades at some regionals 10 years ago. I remember at my Mesa interview (I didn't take the job there), they told me 12 month upgrade. And there was talk of flow, after all 10 years ago we at Eagle were flying with ex-TWA and ex-AA flowbacks, who were able to flow back to Eagle because our flowthrough agreement had a provision for them to flow back in the event of furloughs from AA, and the resulting stagnation at Eagle (combined with the fact that the top of our seniority list were given AA seniority numbers and therefore didn't try to leave for anywhere else) is part of the reason we are such a senior workforce with such a long upgrade time. I agree with you though that times have changed. The massive number of retirements is promising, and possibly makes flowthrough less valuable than advertised--like you said, almost all of us will be at a major in 10 years, flow or not.

Another wild card is that I think more changes are coming to the regionals and nobody knows exactly what they are. The staffing numbers don't add up. Consolidation, merging, more flow, etc. Because of the unknowns, I personally think that people should make the flow only one of the many considerations when choosing where to work, not really outweighing the rest. Just my opinion. I don't have any more access to any of this info than any other line pilot.

 

Here we go again with the "flow is truth" rhetoric from another first time poster management type.

Don't buy into the hype of something that never worked in the past! This same crud was spewed before!

Once again Envoy management thinks you are stupid. They think you can be duped into one of the worst quality of life airlines by the HOPE of something better eventually. In the end, you get to work for an airline with a mile long grievance list, a management comprised of some of the most heartless bastiges in the industry, and once the shiny jet honeymoon is over - a new hire will realize how indentured their servitude is.

Don't fall for it.

 

That's spectacular advice!

Why didn't I think of that? I'll just upend my family's life so I can go back to school for a finance degree and then work 60-70 hours a week and weekends too. I'll never see them, but I'll tell them that this guy on the internet said I needed to fly as a hobby, and boy was he right. I just need to earn a few million real quick so I can make enough for retirement before I run back to fly airplanes again.

He also refused to let me use his time machine so that I could completely alter the course of my life in a timely manner to avoid all these hang ups like bankruptcies and market crashes.

Thanks for the advice.

 

Maybe not in your situation but from the beginning I would rather work hard for a handful of years become a millionaire buy my own airplane and live the good life rather than fly for a living.

 

All you gotta do is work hard for a couple a years to be a millionaire? Sheeet I've been doing it all wrong! Just a handful of years right?