Are we really overstaffed?
 

I know some people previously said stuff about no premium and reserves not flying much = overstaffed, but when you look at the reserve grid its red 90% of the days in my base. Black on some and only green on 2 days the whole month of April.

Is this because new hires who were on reserve are leaving? Or are we just running super lean on reserves compared to before? I have seen more premium recently and only seen 1 or 2 people on C and D reserve for some reason, CS is moving people to B and E a lot as well.

I personally had 2 people from my class leave in the past couple weeks, so I am sure more are doing so as well, we are under 2k on FLICA, bordering where newhire classes of 30 wont be pushing us over 2k every month anymore. I guess this is probably attributed to what I am seeing with the reserves, because it seems like CS is running around constantly trying to figure stuff out since they dont have enough reserves (a CS told me that on the phone yesterday, he said it was really busy and they dont have enough reserves).

Keep in mind the grid reflects reserves that have been used too. I’m my base the grid is approx 75% green next month and I’ve only been used 4 days on RSV so far this month. I have noticed an uptick in premium though, and hopefully with the slow down in hiring the company gets caught with their pants down and premium goes through the roof this summer.

Oh thanks I completely forgot about that, I also have only been used a couple times this month. May is mostly Green/black with some red. My mistake. I hope they also get caught also. I would love to actually pick up some premium for once. I have been seeing a good bit pop up, just not on my days off sadly

I like working less but it still doesn’t allow me to drop half of my stuff. We can’t be that fat on pilots

May has a grand total of 17 open time trips available for pickup company wide on the FO side. Vegas accounts for half and all other bases have 0-3 available.

Yeah its insane, but youre still not able to drop or swap a lot. Its confusing

I’m confused too. What aren’t you able to drop? If it’s trips, as long as you’re 2+ days out it should be smooth sailing. And if it’s reserve…well, Biffle himself couldn’t get a reserve day dropped.

Swap? Yes, you gotta be the fastest flica in the west. But drop? You should be able to drop any day you want in every base except Vegas and then there’s only 1 or 2 days that might be a challenge.

One thing I’ve noticed is that few if any people here post a trip for pickup on the trade board. In a previous life, every base in both seats, the pickup and trades were a mile long. Maybe just a company culture difference stemming from a literal inability to drop anything at my previous regional.

FO side seems very very adequately staffed. Like, only called once or twice in a month on reserve, staffed. Like gonna run out the consolidation clock haha. I know quite a few of me peers trying to pick up extra hours, even in other bases, but it’s skint. I enjoy big chilling. But I bet those trips would get picked up by the FOs eager to fly.

I know it’s been ridiculous. How do they expect us to build time to move onto a legacy with such sparse open time?

That's hilarious. Wish this forum had a like button.

Open time comes and goes in waves. Give it a few months and it'll be back im sure. He only thing that's constant around here is change

The 2nd constant is the fact we have like 15+ people a month going to United lol

contrary to what Barry says and what some believe, no we are not fat on pilots. First we we missed our utilization forecast. We are still only around 11 hours a day. They want 12-12.5. 120 hours a day we are not using our planes. 40-50 flights a day more we could be doing. If we are fat on pilots then why not use them?
then the aircraft delay talk starts. We were scheduled to get 24 this year. Per senior VP of ops we are still getting 20! That’s only a delay on 4 and even at that if there was a concern on having enough aircraft since we are so “fat on pilots” I’m sure the leasing company would extend a couple leases on some classics.
But some will keep drinking the koolaid.

I fly with people all the time who still claim that we have such higher profit margins than the “big guys”. I ask where they heard that from, because it’s not true.

I am also seeing days on reserve where there are no D reserves and a single C reserve.... I am not sure who is deciding these things, but the "fat on pilots" doesn't seem completely believable. Especially like said above, there is lower utilization than they want.

What’s your theory on the reduced class sizes, no upgrades and no open time?

Training backlog due to lack of LCAs, causing multiple week waits for IOE, that’s at least part of it. Parts availability and supply chain issue is another part. Not sure if Frontier is impacted by the FAA requesting schedule reductions in NY airspace, but wouldn’t be surprised. Aircraft delivery delay uncertainty.

FYI nobody in the current class that just finished sims (Feb hires) has had more than a week off before IOE started.