Yes.


Now, he does know his aviation, and apparently can fly. He also made a lot of money running his flight school prior to coming to the airline. He would tell us about it often. :rolleyes: (gotta wonder about somebody who had to brag to a bunch of strangers.)

So, we all wondered why he would come to an airline that paid so much less than he was making already. :confused:

"It's the dream," or something similar would be his answer.



But he lacks professionalism and maturity.

In class one day, the instructor asked, "any questions?"
He said, "What kind of porn did you watch when you were young?"
*crickets* and :eek:
I mean, where did he think he was?



But that is just one glaring example.



---


I get it, if he didn't like the lifestyle, or he wanted to go back to making more money, fine. Say that. Maybe he just loves instructing, or GA, great! Tell the audience -- a bunch of learning pilots like yourself -- that hey, airlines are not the life for everyone. The schedule can be challenging. The time away can be challenging. There are other challenges. And there are other ways to make a living in aviation.



If you want to be in the airlines, do your research so you can prepare for your nutritional and physiological needs, the demands of the life, and the other challenges.
--(APC was a great tool for me. I've never lack quality food nor had a problem commuting, because I knew what I was getting into and I learned from others how to mitigate the downsides,)-- (APC is not all complaining, just mostly.)



BUT, that's not what D-bag said. He went online, in his uniform, to trash talk the airline that had given him the opportunity to fly jets, travel the world for free, and gain the turbine experience he will now use to further his career.



BTW, The FOM allows us time to meet our physiological needs (food, bathroom, etc.) because they distract from our safe operation.



Telling us he arrived with no sleep and no nutrition to operate a 121 flight sounds like admitting he -intentionally- operated a flight when he knew he was unfit to fly. He should lose his cert. for endangering passengers and the public. Telling the public that his behavior is the norm is smearing me and all other pilots with the same feces-covered stick.



... understand that the first few years at a regional are part of paying your dues. D-bag quit at 19 months, right when all his classmates who had no prior 121 time are upgrading to Captain, with the pluses of higher pay and PIC time to build toward the next step, and the minuses of being back on reserve for a time.



-- Me, I'll take the money (more than I made as an FO, unless I wanted to work my butt off, have no time at home, and hope the pay claim was right and the extra actually showed up,) and the PIC time, which, in about another 18 months should be enough to get me in the door at any Major I want, if I don't want to hang out for the flow. Then the real dream begins. Sure, more time on reserve, but at six figures, a healthy retirement, and an aircraft I can stand up in.



And it only gets better from there.



Maybe his video just bothered me because I knew the guy. Maybe it was because of the smearing us all with the feces-covered stick in a public forum that has now made national news.


Maybe I just think people shouldn't be D***s.

Yeah I have on good accord he was fired. In other news I knew of an envoy pilot that got in trouble filming in the flight deck. So he better hope the powers at be don’t come down on him for that along with what was mentioned before. (Admitting to not being fit for duty)

I don't agree completely with some of the YouTube guy's perspective, but it is good to see some aspects of the actual job becoming more available for prospective candidates to see.

You shouldn't have to pack 4 days worth of ramen noodles and cans of tuna in order to perform your job. I rarely bring anything, but I can afford to buy food. Unfortunately you are at the mercy of the schedule, the delays you're trying to minimize, and finally the food options available at the airport, which in Charlotte are nothing more than abysmal.

If you're young enough that you think Burger King is an adequate food option, you'll do well in this environment.

Let's face it, if the HR recruiters and PSA marketing materials were honest about the pay, and daily challenges involved with the job, they'd get a lot fewer pilots who are frustrated enough to make YouTube videos about their experience.

Of course, if they were honest about everything, they'd get fewer pilots to come here, which would be counter to their goal.

To be fair though, he literally did say this in his video. He said it’s not for everyone and that he does encourage people to at least give it a try to see if it’s for them or not.

I do agree though he could have been better about it. I don’t like to burn bridges, and to me it sure seems like he burned this bridge with PSA. He might regret that decision one days in the future

Let me also remind you PSA isn’t the bridge that Matters. Think big picture. How do you think United, AA, Delta, Fed Ex, UPS, Alaska, Jet Blue, Southwest, Spirit will think? No body is going to want to touch a candidate who going to create a PR hassle making videos bashing a company. This stuff comes up when the majors during application process.....


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Yea but if you’re going to flow in 12 years...who cares? Maybe they’ll forget by then.

Can’t flow if you already quit.....


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True. Should have waited.

I am sure those flows will increase at some point.....


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Sure. What's left that you're willing to give up? Are we down to first born children yet? BTW, you won't get to vote on that one.

I’ve been told by multiple mainline pilots that they can’t continue at the current flow numbers and that flow has no choice but to increase from ALL the wholly owneds. They may not know what they are talking about but I guess time will tell.....

Yeah, AA retirement numbers supports that theory as well.


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They will just increase hiring from off the street before increasing the flow numbers.

Rumor is that's not what daddy Doug/AAG wants, though. That they'd prefer more flows.

I’ve heard AA has wanted more flows from PSA ever since the SSP/flow program was put into place. Yet, we’ve always had an insanely small flow percentage, because our management claims they can’t afford more attrition. Although, piedmont and Envoy have about the same overall attrition percentage with about double the flow percentage. Right now PSA is flowing only 10 a month with more than 1800 pilots. Before that it was only 5 or 6 a month with 1500 pilots. And before that I think it was 4 until we got to about 900 or so Pilots.

Sounds like AA really does want more but for the last 4 years our management has their own way of thinking of how they think the flow numbers will work. By historical trends we won’t see a flow increase until we get to about 2500 pilots.

I heard that they would rather hire more off street than take more flows. Apparently theres been more than a few bad apples coming over.

An increase in flow will come in 2019 (my educated guess).

I’ve heard the same on both sides of the argument. PSA rumor mill is hard at work. Who honestly knows 🤷🏻*♂️

Shocking... :confused: :rolleyes: :eek:

A little background.

Based on the Boeing published data, the hiring in the next few years (and sustained) in the US by the majors will mean the average time in the regionals of about 5 years, at the current 20,000 pilots.

If flows are 7 years, 10 years, etc. they will not make much sense. Something has to give.

A few bad apples as in PSA pilots, or from Piedmont, and Envoy? I have heard the opposite that they like our pilots because our operations are close to streamlined, and that the flow pilots do very well as they are familiar with and have experience in the AA system.

They have to keep the flow useful because it’s the only way they’ll attract new hires and be able to staff the WO regionals.

Short of the mythical B-scale with AA seniority and an RJ seat lock.

What do you think the actual chances of that happening are? I’ve seen a few mentions of this going around.

That would require a change in the APA contract. Openers next year I believe....

They’ll increase flow before giving WO pilots competitive pay raises...

Increasing flows instead of OTS hiring allows them to keep a greater number of personnel costs down.

All 3. Yes, most come over with great attitudes and do very well but the flow definitely (I've seen it firsthand by many) breeds a lazy, entitled attitude. In addition, there is a plethora of threads on here where people with all kinds of failures, criminal activity and violations are being told their only shot is to go to a wholly owned and wait for flow. Hmmmm and you wonder why they WANT to take more off the street?

I know many at mainline and I’m on mainline jumpseats weekly. The overwhelming majority of AA pilots don't have any real complaints about the flow-through pilots. Any “bad apples” tend to get a lot of attention which is why we hear about them more. Whether off the street or flow through, there is always at least 1 in every class. Just the way it goes.

Everything I’ve heard has been very positive. We know and understand the AAG system and don’t need as much hand-holding as some.

I was having this conversation with a mainline recruiter the other week. AA's pilot group is going to dramatically change over the next 10 years based on the open door flow through policy. The WOs are so desperate for pilots they are scooping up almost anyone and relying on the training process to weed them out. The personality, work ethic and background selection criteria has become much more relaxed than it was 5-10 years ago. Fact of the matter is that AA has an obligation to accept all of them. The wave of "resume refugees" is going to increase. AA will have the task of weeding them out through training and their probationary period. The number of bad apple incidents and training failures is going to increase as the bottom barrel candidates start to flow in to AA. Delta and United still hold a barrier with their prefferential interview system, retaining tools to deny employment to these less desirable candidates as they see fit.

There is no denying that the WOs today are taking relatively low experienced pilots, forcing them into upgrade, and having them learn as PIC as opposed to years with a mentor group of experienced pilots. IF time to flow decreases, these folks are going to stroll into AA with less operational decision making. Good or Bad, American is going to be a remarkably different place to work than it is today.

Very true, but all the legacy carrier's will see the squeeze of top tier experienced pilots as well. Delta and United have been able to largely control the quality of candidates like you said by not having a true flow. But the regional's affiliated with them have hired an equal amount of low quality/low experienced pilots as well. Eventually Endeavor, and Republic will have to upgrade less experienced pilots as well.

In terms of experience of our flows from PSA, I would argue that many of the pilots that flowed have 10 years experience and we are now seeing guy's around the 7 year range, which is still a very experienced pilot. I really don't see a guy hired today taking any less than 7 years, and if he upgrades in 2 years, he will have at least 5 years as a captain, at our current flow rate. On the other hand if flow increases and our pilots go elsewhere while waiting, then American really has no one to blame but themselves for the less than desirable candidate that gets through the cracks. When your WO's are laggards in the industry in terms of pay, benefits, domiciles and your only selling point is a flow... guess what shows up on the doorstep. Raise pay, and fix the work rules you may get a better quality entry level applicant, while having a more selective hiring process.

Have the PSA pilots who have flowed started writing on the backs of mainline compass cards already?

No but they’ve been sitting at home out of base on reserve

Uh oh. Have they been getting busted?

Yeah, one was just let go. Happened to be the first one of our flows to be let go too.

One of my friends is nearing minimums and was given an earliest possible class date of January. So either classes for the rest of 2018 are full, or they aren’t doing much hiring to end the year. Earliesst captain review he was offered was December 1.

We are about fully staffed if we lose a deuce for every 900 next year. Now, attrition is another thing.... prob need 30 a month to cover attrition. Thats half of what we were hiring.

Americans B scale along with Scope, supporting Main Line pilots Bank accounts since.......

Welcome to PSA

Were still slowly growing still. If their stated goal is 150 aircraft and the recent announcement of 15 900s are 1 for 1 swaps with 200s that means we’ll still have about 15 or so aircraft to continue taking on. I figure what they’ll do is slowly continue growing through 2019 and 2020 and then once the terminal in DCA is done in 2021 they’ll swap out the remaining 200s with 900s.