Why? Not enough F/Os with 1,000 121? Does that mean upgrade time time will drop to as soon as you have 1,000 121 you'll be in the left seat?

 

Hiring around 200 more FO's and now street captains? With no new flying announced. Something is up, I can think of 3 reasons why perhaps. 1. Getting the next round of EJets. 2. Those new CRJ orders were by Mesa. 3. The Delta flying is for sure going to happen.

Or maybe I am cray cray?

 

No you're not. Hopefully something is announced. But JO could be saving the announcement for when th pilot supply starts running thin

 

United announced the first 30 EJets going to Mesa the morning after a very large new hire class all showed up for their first day. At the time, UAL was cancelling flights left and right at Republic b/c of staffing, particularly on the Q400.

In this environment, regionals who are filling classes--and regionals who can say "hey look we have +40 pilots on our list and +30 pilots on reserve in this base, with 200 guys in the pipeline"--those regionals get the new planes.

The legacies aren't concerned with staffing their own operation, however when it comes to regional feed, I am firmly convinced that having fully-subscribed new hire classes and even surplus pilots on the books are massive advantages for a regional to secure new flying.

Hate on JO all you want, but the man is insanely smart when it comes to business--he's pitching the fact that our classes are full to our mainline partners, and playing on their fears of understaffed regionals causing network disruptions, and it's working out well for him (if not our payrates).

 

This^^. JO basically said this -- Why we are overstaffed. And that he wants to stay overstaffed for this reason.

 

Maybe you can use that as leverage to get a decent contract.

 

Any regional would be very smart to stay overstaffed or just pick up as many pilots as they possibly can. I know SkyWest just figured this out and are probably too late.

 

The only leverage JO has are the surplus of pilots. Other Regionals have turbo prop and 50 seat jets to trade for new planes.

 

And.......
Compass Airlines to fly E-175s for American from Los Angeles | Airports & Routes content from ATWOnline

 

Guessing our la flying is in fact going away. Good riddance. That operation sucks. Prob would be better with ejets if there was gate space. But the Eagles nest sucks. Heard we may pick up some of skw's phx flying soon and get some of our good overnights back. Who knows, who cares. Nothing we do or say will change anything about what routes or flying we get. Classes are still mostly full, people are still coming here.