This is true, maybe that number is closer to 550-600 but still valid. The most junior voter will be about 650 though. There's also only about 70 lifers. Everyone below #70 have 11 years or less longevity and will be flowing.

I agree..I think we're a long way from stagnation. While you can never complain about a minimum of 100 upgrades per year, that number becomes less and less significant with every new hire class that grows the seniority list. There will be more attrition from pilots leaving to go elsewhere than the measly 8/mo SSP.

The other thing that many people forget in this discussion is that while the number of people leaving on the entire seniority list for other jobs may remain fairly constant each month, you will not move up by that number each month. For instance, if the average attrition at a company is 20 a month, by the time that you have been at a company a year or so, you may only be moving up 10 spots a month and the other 10 will have been behind you on the list.

In this current environment, experienced pilots are leaving one airline to go to another. It is not uncommon now to have guys with 8000-1000 hours at a 121 carrier show up in a new hire class at a different regional. Although this is not new (Colgan, Comair, Atlantic Coast, etc...), the hiring boon at the majors and LCC's at the same time is fairly odd. There are new FO's getting hired at LCC's before they even finish IOE at the regional. The attrition is happening just as fast, if not faster, from the bottom of the list as compared to the top.

Many people that are at a company that has a flow are reluctant to leave their regional job (with decent captain pay and good bidding seniority) to go start a new job at a LCC at the bottom of the list again. I would bet that with very few exceptions there are few captains that are in the top 300 numbers at PSA that would leave to go to JetBlue or SouthWest. The same is probably true at Envoy (although a greater number since the flow is greater). They will hold out for American.

That is speculation, but I can't imagine them leaving for a glorified regional (LCC) when they could be at a legacy in a few years and have a good quality of life for those few years.

The point of all of this being, once you hit 50% on the seniority list, the attrition outside of the flow is greatly reduced. Senior captains have more to lose, and are more reluctant to make a move unless it is really worth it. You can't say that attrition above you will remain constant for your career. When I was a new hire, I was moving up 25 spots a month. A couple years later, I was moving up 6 spots a month. The overall attrition was the same, but people behind me were leaving, not in front of me.

That is simply not accurate. Nobody waited 16 years with hiring taking place at the mainline to flow.
Some guys waited up to 3 or so years, then 9-11 tanked hiring and touched off the lost decade. Then when the flow restarted they waited about another 3 yeas. In other words, with the hiring working and flow working it took about 6 years worth of flow to actually flow.
You spin it like a guy waited through 16 years of non-stop flow/hiring to flow. Simply not accurate at all.

Neither is saying you have an 11 year flow. There was NO anything until 2013. So your 11 year guy waited 2 years to interview, not 11.

Like I just said, an Envoy cheerleader that is trying to paint a pretty picture because he knows that the only way that the flow will work for him and other Envoy pilots is if there are enough FO's to fill the classes once the number of pilots is equal to the pilots required. Without new FO's coming in, there is no way that the flow will work or continue. AAG can and will amend it.

There is no simple math that will tell you a flow date or an upgrade date. If anyone posts these as hard numbers, look at their motive. There are simply too many variables to give a hard number.

This statement above is one of the dumbest things that I have seen on here in awhile. Cujo is trying to say that 16 years isn't really 16 years, because hiring didn't take place for 10 of them. Another event could happen tomorrow and stop hiring for another 5 years. That doesn't mean that you will not be working those 5 years waiting to flow.

The truth is that there are pilots at Envoy that have been there 16 years and are just starting to flow. Don't let his attempt at "new math/common core math" persuade you.

The wait to flow is from DOH to starting class at AA/LUS. Period! How long you had to spend at the regional is the only metric.

Actually it's really simple. The guys at Envoy currently flowing to American have 16 years of longevity with the company. Those are the most junior pilots at Envoy who are flowing. You can mask it how you want, 16 years is 16 years.

I was jumpseating on PSA a couple of weeks ago, the aircrew has always been great, and the Capt said the training department was purposely failing direct entry captains so that they would be less hirable. The thought was that these captains would have to stay with the company longer thereby slowing the overall attrition. I find it hard to believe there is any truth in his statement but was wondering if there was anyone on property that could post the pass rates for checkrides?

What?!?!? That is absurd. Direct entry captains just started class. There is only a few.

FO pass rate is at 89% and capt upgrade is at 98% pass rate, 1st class of dec's is still doing indoc.

Obviously a troll post. Pilots are pilots. No one would deliberately fail someone for a stupid reason.

If you search the threads, you will see tha pass rate is pretty high across the board.

I have seen at other airlines in the past a much lower pass rate for street captains for a couple reasons. One is that the check ride SHOULD be tougher as you are becoming the captain at an airline. Also, many people that have spent years at another airline have a difficult time adapting to the way that the new company does things. The fastest way to fail a checkride is to say "but that is how we did it at my last company".