rickair7777

You're correct, I was speaking more hypothetically, as in there is a potential benefit to management IF they choose to take advantage of it.

And obviously I'm not talking about standards of flight experience... if they had that, they would just get hired at mainline. I'm talking about those other factors which can be measured at the entry level, which is of course not everything, and maybe not the most important things.

fadec

Flow is the closest thing we have to a regular union's career progression. If the regional pilots are terrible then what the hell are they doing in my union? I say flow is fine as long as it's from ALPA carriers. BTW, ten year pin to half wing felt a little strange. Should have cut the United one in half, not the ALPA one.

rickair7777

Not that easy. If you make it too hard, then too many folks will be forced to pursue "alternative" aviation careers, ie ULCC/regionals and undercut your union. Too low of course and you dilute the brand.

Maybe ALPA needs a separate regional union, with a slightly different name... allow coordination on common interests but agree to disagree on the obvious conflicts of interest.

I think the fundamental show stopper with limiting major hiring to alpa (or any union members) is military pilots. Much as some civilians would like to see a 15-year fighter pilot academy grad with 100 combat missions start in the industry slinging gear for a 25-year old in an RJ, it's just not going to happen, and there's no point in wasting breath talking about it.

Excargodog

And yet things have changed a lot in the last twenty years in the US military. Aircraft have gotten MUCH more expensive and flying hours have gone down. And yes, there is a pilot shortage but some of that is virtually inevitable at this point, because so many units have been deactivated and bases closed. Don't know about the Navy but the USAF is currently struggling to churn out about 1200 pilots a year. They THINK they'll be able to up that to 1400 a year eventually but to do it they may have to hire civil service or contract instructors, at least for the lower level training. And while the guys in tankers and transports will get some reasonable flying hours, the fighter guys will barely get enough hours to keep quasi proficient if they are simply flying the line and not Stan-eval or instructors.

https://www.military.com/daily-news/...th-pilots.html

Overall USAF flyers get about 18 hours of flying time a month, but the vast majority of that is tanker, transport, and bomber time. The cost to fly an F-35A per hour is $42,606, while an F-22 is $64,287, according to the Air Force's 2016 operational cost for Air Force aircraft data sheet, so the fighter jocks aren't going to be getting huge increases in their rather measly flying hour allotments any time soon either. At least in the USAF, fighter pilots - line flyers - average less than two sorties a week - and it's been that way for the last five years.

So things have rather PROFOUNDLY changed. Even with a 10 YEAR ADSC, the experience level of those coming out of the military is far lower than it has been historically, and even if it wasn't, 1200 pilots a year won't even handle a fraction of the upcoming mandatory retirements. The throughput just isn't there and with all the training bases that used to be around that are now closed, increasing that throughput won't be easy.

Again, can't speak for Navy or Marines or Army fixed wing, but I doubt if they are in much better shape. This simply isn't the military of twenty years ago.

at6d

What if it’s a 55 year old in an RJ? Will your 1500 hour mil pilot be ok with that?

You cant use the tactic of stating an opinion and then disallowing discussion on a discussion forum.

There are plenty of military guys flying for regionals right now due to recency issues.

m3113n1a1

Also what if it's a 28 year old in a Delta MD-88? Is it okay for a 15-year all star fighter jock to sling his gear seeing as it's not an RJ?

rickair7777

Depends.

Tactic? What tactic? What did I disallow???


Due to their own individual circumstances, in many or most cases self-inflicted. And they stay for about 18 months, maybe. They are not forced to wait for upgrade and then wait for flow (which could take up to 15-20 years if hiring is slow).

The point being it's simply not going to happen that the ONLY pathway to a legacy will be via regional feeders to the exclusion of mil, corporate, foriegn experience, etc. That's the reality, and it doesn't really matter what I think are the underlying reasons.

BTW... I was framing the problem, not actually stating that I think experienced mil pilots are automatically entitled to anything. Bottom line, majors want mil pilots, and mil pilots have six figure career options in a wide variety of jobs, both non-airline and non-aviation. So the majors will probably not do anything to exclude them... forcing a broadly talented self-starter to sling gear at a regional for years is going to effectively exclude most of them, they'll just go do something else.

WakeWash

I’m sure the guys you’ve flown with are great, but remember these current flows are guys hired 6+ years ago before the current hiring process the regionals have. They actually had real interviews. Just to give you some perspective on how a place with flow programs will look in a few years and beyond. At my previous place that had a flow, a guy was hired who had 7 checkride failures. 3 years ago he was turned away. He was recently hired after trying again and upgraded quickly because that’s how bad they need him. This guy is now guaranteed to be working at mainline. Of course he could be a whole new pilot, I don’t know. But really almost anyone is being hired now. The regionals are essentially doing the hiring now, with the major having no say anymore.

CrispyBacon

The only thing a regional airline accomplishes is to divide the pilot group only in this instance do mainline unions not fall apart over tiered flying scales. Why? Because its "not at my airline".

These are the same unions that accept dues from regional pilots for decades and then wont even help them get an interview at a mainline because "my military pilot buddies" or some other lame excuse. The same d-bags that will happily ride our jump seats to their better quality of life every week and brag about their assets and talk down to the people that give them a ride.

100% READY TO DISSOLVE ALPA! Regional representation is a LIE.

PotatoChip

I agree with half of this. I've never been "talked down to" by a jumpseater. Almost all have been gracious and thankful. That said, I have been in mainline jumpseats and been talked down to by completely clueless pilots with zero understanding of the regional airline industry who somehow thought I was taking THEIR jobs...

I do agree that it's a joke that regionals are "represented" by ALPA. ALPA has done many wonderful things for the industry, and I've been a volunteer in committees myself. However, when they post applause for themselves over Mesa's or CommutAir's contracts I can't help but laugh at a what a joke it is. /rant