Reserve time for new hire DECs, please?
 

Earlier this week a Piedmont recruiter suggested that reserve times for a DEC would likely be measured in months, not years.

Just trying to: 1) make sure that I didn't misunderstand what was said, and 2) get confirmation of said-same from the pilot-side (vs someone working in the recruiting department).

Many thanks in advance!

Using a fairly realistic rate of attrition you could expect to be close to a line holder in PHL or CLT about 26 months after completing training as a DEC assuming things are steady state. It takes almost 7 months to complete training here. So 33 months from starting INDOC. Highly unlikely things remain steady state for Another 3 years.

Best course of action if you come to Piedmont as a DEC is move to within a 30 minute car ride to the employee parking lot of PHL/CLT/MDT.

Reserve time 26 months?
 

I was told by a recruiter that Charlotte is junior for DECs and reserve might be only a month or two. I was also told there are no breaks in training and that 3 months after starting, IOE would be completed. Is this really just evil marketing?

Clt/Phl/mdt all vacillate in how senior they are. It’s very hard to say how junior/senior a base will go based on attrition, etc. What I can say is that at present there are captains in their 4th year with the company that can’t hold a line. For august the most junior captain to hold a line in Clt looks to be a late2018/early2019 new hire. I think if you accept a Dec position it’s safe to assume you will be bottom of the list for 2-3 years; if it takes less than 2 years you are lucky. If you live in base reserve life isn’t terrible. Keep in mind that is based on maintaining the current size of the airline. If PDT grows it will take less time if it shrinks more, just ask the Phl captains who have seen the lines in Phl decrease from 115 in December to 65 in august

DEC reserve time
 

Thanks for that info. Not sure why recruiters feel the need to do a "hard sell" on a company that is willing to pay in access of many majors, so I'm assuming there's a ton of pressure from mgmt to get butts in the left seat. That being said, I am wondering what trips look like out of Charlotte? 2 legs/day? 5 legs/day? Lots of 1 day trips or mostly 4 day trips? Really appreciate all the help. Big decision and all that.

Plan on reserve for no less than 24 months for PHL, Closer to 36 months in CLT. MDT is small and a fair number of people live local so we’ll see how it plays out long term. Good news is most attrition comes from PHL and CLT so shouldn’t be too long to PHL as a DEC.

I have a similar question. My partner is considering joining as a DEC and I’ll be joining at the same time as a FO. We are trying to figure out where to move as we’d most definitely want to live in base. So PHL or CLT?

Most DECs with an otherwise clean record can be hired at a major long before they will ever get off reserve.

November 2018 hire, still on reserve.

Appropriate name... Is that what you say at five am... Hey baby.. we got plans for you!!!!?