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Piedmont Airlines Regional Airline

Really That Bad?

Old 12-13-2019, 07:08 PM
  #21  
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Also, forgot to mention that all trip-trading, swapping, picking up open time, etc is all done by sending an email to scheduling. Most days, time permitting, they have a round-table meeting where they award/deny all requests, then it's your responsibility to call back and see if your request was awarded. Obviously I've met a lot of people who've found that their trips were inaccurately denied for coverage, someone senior awarded, etc, and after significant legwork on their end to prove it, they got some form of compensation. But at PSA, they have an app where they can change their schedule instantly and objectively.
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Old 12-13-2019, 07:10 PM
  #22  
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Originally Posted by 60av8tor View Post
I think adding one to the flow - 7 - is a realistic average over the course of your stay at PDT. As others have said, a couple years out, it comes to a screeching halt. I do believe anything under 8 for a new hire is a pipe dream. That’s assuming things remain the same, which is next to an impossibility over that long of a time period.
Taking samples from a seniority list dating back to early last year, and comparing it to the one today, you’re looking at an average attrition of 7 a month overall....it’s anywhere between 7-8 years to flow to AA as a new hire with how attrition has been as of recently.
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Old 12-14-2019, 08:12 PM
  #23  
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Yep. Zero transparency or accountability on the company side of scheduling.
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Old 12-15-2019, 03:50 AM
  #24  
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Originally Posted by Theaveragejoker View Post
Yep. Zero transparency or accountability on the company side of scheduling.
Hey baby, I got changes for your flying today.
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Old 12-16-2019, 07:27 AM
  #25  
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I hear a lot of speculation on flow, the hiring boom, etc, and I'm a numbers guy, so I wanted to see for myself:

I compiled all of the 'hiring' data from FAPA and the 'mandatory retirements' at the majors (AA, Delta, United, Fedex, UPS, SW, and Alaska). This data excludes LCCs that are projecting growth, like Spirit and Frontier because I couldn't find enough published trend data.

Airline Pilot Mandatory Retirements.jpg

I was an engineer before I did this, so I learned that anyone can compile data, but the real talent is using the data combined with reasonable unbiased assumptions to draw an accurate conclusion. If you're too conservative or too aggressive on your assumptions your conclusions will be worthless, and I've noticed pilots tend to be very cautious people. So here's what I found, and please feel free to call me out, add info, etc; I'm trying to figure out reality so I can plan my life, not BS around.

From APC I found that as of 2019 there are 21,519 pilots in the regionals (I adjusted PDT to 705 pilots) and roughly 15,000 pilots each in AA, Delta, and United.

This article gave some decent SA on military pilots:https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...ave-plummeted/
My take-away was that about 1/5 of the pilots under 40 are ex-military. 40-44 (20 year career) and it jumps to about 1/3, but any time before that was the Cold War era drawdown and that isn't good data for today. Currently all of the services are very undermanned for pilots, it will get much worse before it gets better, and the problem will persist for the foreseeable future. In summary, the majors are going to have to get the vast majority of their pilots from the regionals for the foreseeable future.

With that in mind, the number of retirements at the majors (AA, Delta, United, SW, Alaska, FedEx, UPS) will equal half of the current regional pilots by 2023 and all of the current regional pilots by 2027. This is unadjusted for military/corporate, early retirements, anyone who leaves the majors for reasons other than retirement, projected growth/shrink, LCCs like Spirit, Frontier, JetBlue, Allegiant, or any cargo except UPS and FedEx. So, as a rule of thumb it appears roughly all of the regional CAs now will be hired by 2023 and roughly all of the regional pilots will be hired by 2027, just based on these conservative numbers. Also, if you look at my graph it appears hiring is increasing disproportionately ahead of the retirements. I'm not sure if this is because people are retiring early, the airlines are trying to lead the shortage, there's a growing economy, a combination, or some other reason I haven't thought of.

Also, the average mandatory retirements at the majors through 2030 will be 3125/yr. According to FAPA, from Jan - Jul 2019 Spirit hired 105, JetBlue 283, Frontier for all of 2019 is hiring 300 (from APC), so that's roughly 1076 pilots in 2019 at companies that are all growing and have contracts/pay that are all decent enough to spend a career at. So if we assume the average number of pilots hired to a permanent airline is 4,200/yr for the foreseeable future, that means the average stay at a regional should be 5.1 years + whatever time is added for military non-regional pilots. It's almost as if AA built their regional business model around knowing this.

This also means that the regionals are going to have to recruit 4,200 pilots a year to stay in business. I'm not sure how many pilots are produced annually by all the civilian sources combined (Part 141, 91, ERAU, ATP, etc), but if they can't keep up with demand, scarcity plays to our advantage. That's where we might see faster movement to the majors and higher pay/QoL at the regional level, but that's purely speculation.

Since we are at the front of the hiring boom, the civilian training pipeline, and certainly the military pipeline, was likely not prepared to produce enough pilots, so that 5 years will likely compress even more. Right now it seems the majors are cherry picking a few guys a month who are OE instructors, spent thousands on interview prep, went to all the career fairs, etc (and good on them, I'm really happy their ambition and hard work paid off), but when guys start seeing average joes junior to them getting picked up by the majors, it wouldn't surprise me if there's a mass exodus. What I can't see happening is many people waiting 6 or 7 years on a flow while everyone junior to them is getting hired by the majors years ahead of them.

Last edited by Duffman; 12-16-2019 at 07:29 AM. Reason: Corrected attachment
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Old 12-16-2019, 08:52 AM
  #26  
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Originally Posted by Duffman View Post
So, as a rule of thumb it appears roughly all of the regional CAs now will be hired by 2023 and roughly all of the regional pilots will be hired by 2027
That's some good info on what retirements and hiring requirements are in the upcoming years, but I really have to strongly disagree with this. This is based on the assumption that the vast majority of pilots are going to come from regionals, and that every airline has a flow-like agreement where employment at a major is a guarantee.

AA recently put out a hiring update, where they outlined who they are hiring and where they come from. Its pretty much 40% military and 60% civilian. The vast majority of civilian pilots are flows. They very strongly worded that this is the way they like it and the way it will remain. "The path to American has never been clearer".

I think where your prediction goes wrong is with the military side of hiring. Yes they will be hurting for pilots, but pilots will still be separating regularly.
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Old 12-16-2019, 10:27 AM
  #27  
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Originally Posted by Bluetaildragger View Post
That's some good info on what retirements and hiring requirements are in the upcoming years, but I really have to strongly disagree with this. This is based on the assumption that the vast majority of pilots are going to come from regionals, and that every airline has a flow-like agreement where employment at a major is a guarantee.

AA recently put out a hiring update, where they outlined who they are hiring and where they come from. Its pretty much 40% military and 60% civilian. The vast majority of civilian pilots are flows. They very strongly worded that this is the way they like it and the way it will remain. "The path to American has never been clearer".

I think where your prediction goes wrong is with the military side of hiring. Yes they will be hurting for pilots, but pilots will still be separating regularly.
I'm still in the Reserves and I don't think the AF has the numbers. I can't imagine the other services are different. The military enjoyed strong retention during the lost decade and throttled back UPT to the bare minimum, assuming that those high retention rates would last forever, but as soon as the airlines ramped up hiring, pilots started leaving in droves. From everything I can see, the well is dwindling from roughly 10 year groups to the 1 or 2 who reach year 11 (end of ADSC) or year 20 (retirement). Either way, the AF and Navy together produced roughly 2000 pilots a year for the last 10ish years, almost every RTPer will have to go to the regionals first, a lot fewer military pilots than you'd think are interested in an airline career, and those retirement numbers didn't even factor in the LCCs, which were another 1000 or so pilots per year. The numbers are rough and I admit they don't perfectly cancel out, but I wouldn't be surprised if we start to see a lot more vertical movement in the regionals starting in a year or so.
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Old 12-16-2019, 10:29 AM
  #28  
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Originally Posted by Duffman View Post
but when guys start seeing average joes junior to them getting picked up by the majors, it wouldn't surprise me if there's a mass exodus. What I can't see happening is many people waiting 6 or 7 years on a flow while everyone junior to them is getting hired by the majors years ahead of them.
Mass exodus to where, for what? Go back to a cubicle to stick it to the man vs. continuing to gain experience in the field you’re hoping to make a life-long career and updating your apps...? Nobody (other than the outliers with significant black marks) will be waiting that long if “everyone” is getting hired.

I commend your analysis, even though I may not agree it completely, but I certainly don’t ever see a mass exodus - assuming you’re talking about out of the regionals. Compare conditions now vs only a few short years ago. I think you may be underestimating the average person’s fortitude to have a chance at the brass ring. Sure some go very early - maybe because of outstanding quals, maybe because of who they know, who their parents are, etc - but I think things mean out to a reasonable average if you’d look at current hiring demographics.
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Old 12-16-2019, 11:08 AM
  #29  
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Originally Posted by 60av8tor View Post
Mass exodus to where, for what? Go back to a cubicle to stick it to the man vs. continuing to gain experience in the field you’re hoping to make a life-long career and updating your apps...? Nobody (other than the outliers with significant black marks) will be waiting that long if “everyone” is getting hired.

I commend your analysis, even though I may not agree it completely, but I certainly don’t ever see a mass exodus - assuming you’re talking about out of the regionals. Compare conditions now vs only a few short years ago. I think you may be underestimating the average person’s fortitude to have a chance at the brass ring. Sure some go very early - maybe because of outstanding quals, maybe because of who they know, who their parents are, etc - but I think things mean out to a reasonable average if you’d look at current hiring demographics.
I think you really misunderstood my quote. I think there'll be a mass exodus upward if, as so many people say, people at PDT don't have their apps out and are just waiting out the flow.
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Old 12-16-2019, 11:12 AM
  #30  
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Originally Posted by Duffman View Post
I think you really misunderstood my quote. I think there'll be a mass exodus upward if, as so many people say, people at PDT don't have their apps out and are just waiting out the flow.
We can definitely agree that the movement is already insane for everyone at PDT. The problem with PDT is that higher seniority does not equate to a better QOL. But guys flowing to AA in 5 years (for that lucky group) is serious, serious movement. I think that's the fastest we'll see for a long long time.
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