ExpressJet requesting leave of absences?
 

I talked to a buddy who works for ExpressJet, and he said the company was requesting around 300 pilots to take a 1 to 3 month leave of absence starting in a couple months. Is this true? If so, is the company going to make these leaves mandatory for the junior guys if no one takes them?

i heard the same think from a friend of mine based in ewr. very interesting.

Its meant to deal with the 10% reduction of flying that pretty much the whole industry is experiencing with $106 oil. We're losing about 20 pilots/mo due to attrition so we should be fine. We'll probably end up short-staffed by the end of it.

I knew it would be a matter of time before someone posted this on here. Nothing to it, just a way to control the little bit of over staffing we have on account of the block reduction from DAL, CAL, and branded. It's only for three months with full benefits (no pay), and they haven't defined a number, but it won't be 300 I can assure you.

So the company anticipates attrition to continue at that pace in spite of reductions?

This is one step above being completely furloughed; they’re just anticipating attrition to balance their needs out. I’m not sure but if a pilot gets furloughed and comes back, say one month after being furloughed, does that pilot have to go through training before being returned to the line? Even if they are still within their currency period? Furloughed/Laid off/terminated being the part that might cause them to have to retrain according to the FAA. I honest don’t know the answer to this question. If this is the case then it’s cheaper to pay the benefits on those pilots than retrain them, it also gives the pilots the impression that Mgmnt’s looking out for them seeing they’re not technically getting furloughing.

20 is low-ball...don't know about the company but I bet attrition accelerates because of this. My seniority has moved up at least 20 a month for the last 4 months. Most of the people I've talked to are pretty sure we'll be understaffed by the end of the summer and will finally need to train-up some of these guys in the new-hire pool.

As opposed to most cr@p hole operations flying regional jets, XJT actually does care about their people, and no this isn't to mitigate furloughs, it's just to improve the bottom line for a few months and give a few people the chance to take a month or two off, and no COLA's are not mandatory, they usually go quite senior. Most of these COLAs will go to those who want a month to run their other businesses, or travel if they don't need the money. The beauty of working for a decent regional is you have the luxury of taking a month off without going to the poor house, granted the COLAs are only for FOs. Some pilots are looking forward to it, as they have new ones at home and will enjoy the time off. As opposed to non-union airlines, by definition, COLAs are NOT mandatory, those are called furloughs, and XJT is not even considering such a measure. The COLAs offer a win-win, for the company and the pilots.

I know many people would love to see the demise of XJT, especially the bottom sucking CEOs of certain regionals, simply because they can point to XJT and say to their scared pilot groups, "look, see what happens with a good contract, your company will go out of business." If you believe XJT is going out of business, you'll be quite suprised. XJT is going to go through a hard time with 106 dollar oil, as will all the majors. RJET will be fine since according to their 10K, all fuel costs are pass through expenses to the major provider. XJT only has 210 airplanes under such arrangement, leaving 64 airplanes at risk for high fuel prices. For all in the regional industry, you should hope for the success of XJT, as XJTs success will allow for better contracts in the industry.

Jet jock: read your FARS, within 90 days no training is required... wait isn't that 3 months...

Once again, the rumors of XJT's death have been greatly exaggerated.

To be honest, I wish I had started a side business 6-12 months ago or that I was independently weatlhy so that I could take advantage of this time off to travel the world or grow my business with the company still paying for my benefits. Oh well...I still need the paycheck so I guess I'm missing the boat on this one.

XJT is a fine regional airline, and I hope you guys get through this downturn unscathed.

However don't think for a second that if not enough pilots take COLA that they wouldn't cut from the bottom end of the list to keep costs down.