ThisIsMe17

I've heard rumors that Piedmont and the rest of the AA wholly owned regionals have slowed down in their hiring. Is this true?

AboveAndBeyond

PSA has not slowed down. New hire classes are pretty much full throughout the rest of the year with just a few openings in each. Close to 200 new hires projected between now and the end of the year.

Envoy is hiring pretty regularly, but I am not sure how many PDT is hiring. Someone on here will know that answer.

OversoldCommute

Piedmont has actually increased for THIS month, but I don't know if that's supposed to continue or what. The past few months we've done 2 classes of 5 per month, the months before that we did 1 class of 10... For September, we're doing 2 classes of about 10 each.

ThisIsMe17

Is the slowdown due to not needing pilots or is it due to logistics of trying to train everyone?

JC145

There’s no more training backlog.

CADR

I think it’s more so that applicants interview and get the job offer, but remember they are shopping around - it’s a pilot’s market right now. More often than not, a perspective pilot will end up choosing another regional airline over PDT when they have several job offers from various regionals.

PDT is having a hard time being competitive to new hires when stacked against other regionals.

Pay is pretty equal these days across the board everywhere. So what it comes down to is bases, QOL (schedules) and equipment (aircraft).

PDT has 145s which is old equipment when compared to CRJ900s and EMB175s. PDT does not have PBS bidding software for schedules which translates to 11 days off /month schedules when compared to other regionals where you can start to get 18 days off / month when you build a bit of seniority. Lastly, PDT only has 2 bases (PHL & CLT), so it really doesn’t make sense for someone on the west coast or even the midwest to come to PDT. Essentially this all translates to PDT having trouble recruiting new blood because the other regionals have more attractive offers and PDT doesn’t have anything that makes it a “better” choice. Yes there is flow to AA, but PDT is currently only flowing 6 pilots / month, for a new hire today that comes out to roughly 8 - 9 years (give or take) before you would flow.

ThisIsMe17

Will Piedmont increase fleet size in the future? Or expand to other bases?

offmyrocker

Do you have the winning lotto numbers for the next drawing? No one knows... well no pilot knows. Mngnt knows and they tell the press before they bother with the pilot group.

CADR

Nobody knows. Everything is always kept secret it seems. There are always rumors, but take those with a grain of salt.

If I had to guess, things will stay the way they are for the foreseeable future.

Flyinguy

You are either a recruiter, management, drinking the kool-aid, or made an honest mistake, but let me correct that for you.

PAY-SCALES are pretty equal across the board.

PAY, is nowhere near close to equal. If you ended up working 11 days off at the other WO, you would take home 25% more (if not more). Their soft pay rules and block times are way better than PDT.

The only reason anyone should maybe (and I emphasize maybe) joining PDT at this time is if they live in PHL. Or if they can’t get hired anywhere else.