It was close to a month before I got an email for the first phone interview. Still waiting to see if I get to move on but was told I get an answer either way.

 

I would give it a little bit of time. If you meet or exceed all of the minimums then you should get a call.

 

The simple fact is, we’re just not hiring that many right now so they won’t interview that many right now.

As predicted by some every company/union initiative over the last five years has been aimed at one primary goal: reduce head count. It has worked like a charm. From a seniority list of more than 2800 when the contract was signed in late 2015, we are now at just over 2400. And falling.

Now, the Fed has approved AQP training which means 33% of pilot days currently spent in training each year will be days those pilots can be on the line instead. That means even fewer pilots even though fleet size is (slowly) growing (for now).

If there is ANY major hiccup in the economy, the company is well-positioned to immediately drop the remainder of fleets in disposal and not be saddled with an enormously over-staffed pilot group.

It’s just math.

 

With people waiting 2-3 months now for IOE on the Latie and now down a sim do to the "crash", recurrent is backed up so I think they have no choice but to slow hiring. Interesting though that we are flying more legs a month than anytime in company history and we're still getting 2-3 680's a month and flying 25+ hours a tour for most of us on 7/7.

 

Which another reason why the company can’t WAIT for the transition to AQP. That will free up simulators another 33% as well. The training pipeline will open up considerably which will be important when existing pilots are moved from dying or dead fleets to the new(ish) metal.

The company figured out EXACTLY how extract more work out of fewer pilots and did so pretty cheaply. It’s working...

Although last tour for me was a whopping 11.7 hours of credit. No fatigues. No write ups. They crew swapped us rather than let us hit the magic number. What. Ever.

 

What fleet are you on? I do find it interesting they aren't going to type guys into the Longitude from Latitude when both cockpits are extremely similar and both have the same instruments, that would really save them some $$? SWA has guys flying 3 different 73's? AQP is awesome, very low stress!

 

The Longitude has a different (swept) wing, different tail, and different type certificate and rating. Despite the same fuselage cross section, it's not the same airplane, any more than the 737 and 727 are the same airplane.

They aren't 3 different airplanes. They're variants of the same airplane, with same type rating, same wing, same tail, and the same flight characteristics. From the pilot's point of view, the only differences are some minor changes to the displays and moving a couple of switches in the cockpit to accommodate the larger displays.

Having the same subset of pilots flying the Latitude and Longitude would certainly save the company money, but would defeat the safety advantages of having the pilots fly only one type at a time.

 

The Latitude is a variant of the C-680 (Sovereign) and is the same type rating as the Sovereign and Sovereign+, you can fly any of them with differences training (mainly the completely revamped avionics)

The Longitude (as far as I know), is a completely new type which is replacing the Citation X, but I don't think it will be the same Type Rating as the X.

 

According to a friend, seats are filled on the Latty, August, Sept, Oct classes at NJA will get the Phenom, the XLS or the Sovereign, even though, things change fast.

 

Looks like at least a few pilots in the latest class got the Latitude (pics online). Not sure about what % of this latest class are going to the Latitude.