Yep, you can lead a horse to water only so many times..

While firing BL is a huge step forward, they are in for a surprise if they think anything is going to change by that alone. Firing brad isn't going to make Q400 classes some how full again. There needs to be a significant change in management and their philosophy of running things..

My advice to them: You might have more success if your director of flight ops and VP of flight ops IS ACTUALLY A PILOT. Someone who knows what it's like to fly the line. There's WAY too many people in director level positions of power at this airline who have never flown a fking plane before. Look at any successful airlines history and the people who have ran the flight ops departments have always been line pilots at some point.

I vote PS for Director of Ops(note 1). You know who. Seriously, they don't need someone who is a good solider and cuts deep when they want to squeeze more juice out of us for the sake of profits. They need an effective leader that can cut through Bull. PS is the only possible candidate I can think of, although I know there are other great candidates within. Perhaps they'll scalp talent fro outside.

Either way, They airline is failing at it's only job. Move stuff from A to B. That isn't hard.

Note 1: Yes, I know it's not a democracy.

More to your point, it's isn't the pilot's responsibility to properly manage, staff, and lead a company. The point at which a company's labor pool is more tallented at running a company than the management is, there is a serious problem. Pilots are a unique kind of unionized work force. Are there any other kinds of heavy machine operators that are generally, well educated in both business and the machine they operate? I can't think of any.

The VP of flight ops who we just fired flew an airbus once 10 years ago when he snaked his way up the ladder at virgin. He did their inaugural flight to SFO or something.

In the years he was at Qx he never flew the Q400, never completed training, yet made policy decisions that affect us significantly. We're the only airline in the US that still flies Q400s and it's arguably one of the most difficult and challenging planes to learn to fly...He's responsible for trying to get our AQP cycle cut from 3 days to 2 which was a huge pita for all us who had to be guinea pigs (Feds said no after trial was done). He's also responsible for having upgrade training slashed..q400 upgrades will now have to do 30 hours of CBT, 3 days of ground, then oral checkride and off to the sims. The 2 week ground school is gone. "That's how we did it on the Airbus!"

The FOs upgrading now will be able to handle it but the 175 FOs down the road will struggle big time.

I always espoused that. Why? Because:

1. QX pilots are trained to the same standard as AS pilots. Sit on a jumpseat and the departure/approach briefings are mirror images.
2. You know the work ethic of the QX pilot. You have his personnel file.
3. You know how he/she fits in with the corporate culture of your airline group.

But every time I suggested it to someone on the 2nd floor it was scoffed at. "We want to be able to hire people from differing backgrounds." Answer: Then just flow a percentage of the pilots you need from QX. No sale.

Bring it up to QX managers like the Bagwan and his direct response: "I don't want to be the training center for Alaska pilots." In the mean time the QX pilots that wanted to work for AS and would have been perfect fits were bailing out for SWA, UAL, etc.

Angle Lake "thinking" can be very mysterious.

Good discussion. I used to work for an airline who's management philosophy was to not give employees the resources they needed to do their jobs, then scream loudly at them and threaten bankruptcy if they failed. They are gone now.

Muddle through the summer then ditch half the Q's, replace them one for one with 175's and you might make it.

It's been well know for 20+ years. If you want to fly for Alaska, dont go to QX...

You hit the nail on the head. Regional pilots have proven time and time again that career progression is #1. Not pay or QOL. After all, it's a race to mainline!

Even with the recent pay increases at many regionals, it is still peanuts compared to what the other half gets. American in genius to have propped up their slave labor groups the way they have. People are tripping over themselves to go work for those 3 sh!tee wholly owned airlines.

AAG survives off the fact that people from the PNW will take serious concessions to work for Alaska. Now that word is out that working for Horizon could hurt your chances at getting to Alaska, it severely hurts your recruiting. A simple flow is all that's needed.

PS. I hate flows as they are a management tool to perpetuate this crazy contractor system, but the reality is that it works.

I question 12/2014 junior Ejet captain. Where are you seeing this? Im senior to that and cant hold the Ejet.