What's SAP?

 

"Schedule Adjustment Period"

The SAP at PSA is the main reason I came here, along with the CLT base being an easy 1 leg commute for me. It is by far the largest quality of life enhancer you could possibly imagine. If I want 17-18 days off, I can have them. If I want to credit 100 hours and still have 11 days off, that's possible too. Weekends, holidays, birthdays, family events are all easy to get off.

The way the PSA SAP works is as follows: At PSA, there are in its most basic form, 2 tiers of pilots in any given domicile. Round 1, and round 2 which includes those pilots who are on reserve or have "build up" lines. SAP is only accessible to round 1 line holders. After the round 1 line holders are awarded their schedules, they then have a 24 hour period in which to swap, drop, move, or pick up any trip or flying that is in the open-time pot. The open-time pot updates periodically with new trips and flying so it is something that you are generally working on for a good portion of that 24 hour window to get the schedule you want. That being said, it seems that processing times are still rather slow based on the last SAP from October and not "real time" like they're supposed to be. Regardless, I still get what I want every month. I usually like to SAP down to 17-18 days off and 65-70 hours of credit. However, for November and December I have decided to work more for some extra coin for Christmas coming up and in preparation for tax season, but I still have thanksgiving off and I'll still have Christmas off too.

 

Take notice that none of us from Envoy are selling it. So when crj-700 or others come in here and try to tell you Envoy is a great place to be, think very hard about it.

 

That sounds like a pretty sweet deal! Thanks for the explanation.

 

Just curious. Why isn't Piedmont an option?


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Maybe something to do with PDT flying Dash's and 145's, both of which are outdated and headed for the desert soon.

 

Sounds like PSA would provide you the best QOL initially, but if your final goal is AA then PSA is probably not the place to go. Unless you have a military background, you are not getting hired at AA off the street and PSA's flow is a joke. What is it? 10+ years for a new hire today.

 

PSA knows their flow, reserve and upgrades times can't compete with Piedmont (and probably envoy) so they bend over backwards selling SAP. That's fine, just go in to any new job with your eyes wide open.

 

Alright I'll give it a shot... reserve is dropping like a rock in the next couple of months. Upgrading 30 per month on average. Flowing 30 per month. Upgrade times are dropping very vast as well. If the current hiring and attrition continues the upgrades will be around two years. This is coming from a guy on reserve for two years.

This place has its faults and I'm not going to paint a rosy picture of what management and scheduling do when they are in a pinch.

Good luck where ever you go.

 

Huh? Our upgrade was incredibly short in late 2015 when we were hiring street CAs. And it will likely remain around 2 years going forward as we grow and take on more airplanes. Our flow will increase in 2017 and we are in negotiations for it to increase beyond what we currently have using the current metric. The company also seems to want to wait on the arbitrator's final decision about our critical pay and their manipulation of our reserve grid before agreeing to any further changes to our current flow metric. And our reserve/upgrade time is far ahead of Envoy. Our reserve and upgrade times were like yours are now not too long ago. And then we stopped growing for a while. That is about to change and they will be be low again. And in another year Piedmont will be where PSA is now... Its all cyclical. To think otherwise is foolish.

Bottom line to ANY new hires looking at the AAG WOs. You should realistically look at the flows as an attrition generator that will help ensure you experience steady movement up the seniority list. By the time the flow gets around to you, this industry is going to be transformed into something very different than it is today. The flows may or may not exist. Envoy, PSA, and Piedmont may or may not exist. None of us know what's going to happen over the next 5 years because the industry is basically going through some uncharted territory with the regional pilot shortage and the retirements at mainline. Pick the airline that works the best for you and your family and don't get caught up worrying about "who is going to flow me to mainline the quickest". Much has changed in the past couple years, and much will change in the next couple.

And from what I've heard new hires say, they didn't choose Piedmont because of your base options and equipment.