Don't worry, it didn't. I wasn't walking out, I was running.

 

Hey everyone,
I am about to make the jump from CFI to the regionals and I plan on applying to PSA. I'm just wondering, how much time does a new hire normally have between the end of training and starting work. The reason I ask is because I plan on moving to base, so I will have to sell our house and buy a new one. I tried searching the forums but had no luck finding an answer. Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

 

There isn't much, if any delay in the training pipeline these days. Company needs FOs on the line so I wouldn't expect much time off at all. My guess is that you could start training in a matter of weeks and be complete with IOE by mid summer if not sooner. I would suggest you choose a class date wisely if you need personal time with the move. Welcome aboard and best of luck.

 

The training pipeline is pretty empty right now. There are only 10 new hire pilots currently in training at the Dayton Training Center and zero Captain upgrades in training. So your training "footprint" should not be very long at all. A week and half for indoc. and two weeks for systems and IPT, then it'll be on to the sim for two fun-filled weeks. IOE shouldn't take too long to schedule either since we're pretty beefy on check airmen and not many (student) pilots in the pipeline.

My question to you is why? Why are you looking to come and sit for a year or more on reserve, at one of the lowest paying regionals in the country, which is currently deferring aircraft deliveries and will stagnate due to stubborn management who can't seem to figure out what it's REALLY gonna take to get pilots to follow you in the door. As late as 6 months ago, the future at PSA looked bright! But management has squandered the goodwill and good fortune that they inherited.

As others have opined, it would make sense for someone to come to PSA if you lived in one of their bases. But you're talking about selling your house and RELOCATING!...... for $24,000/year, for months-on-end of hot reserve, followed by up to a year or more of long-call reserve, with the hopes of some day getting a crappy round-two line?!??!??! And if you're thinking that PSA still offers a quick upgrade,....... well that ship has sailed. So far this year, these have been the upgrade numbers - January: 30, February: 6, March: 4, April: ZERO! May: So far,.....Zero! See the trend?

Think long and hard before you put your house up for sale and start driving to Dayton, Ohio.

 

Thanks guys for the answers! The biggest reason I want to fly for PSA is that most of my family live in east Tennessee. So I will be able to stay very close to them as well as live in base and not have to spend a lot of time commuting; spend more time with the wife and family. I don't mind to sacrifice a little pay to live somewhere that I like and is close to family. And did I mention I'm a Vols fan. Haha.

 

You should know that holding TYS might take you a while, it is definitely not the junior base any more. DAY and CVG are about equal on the junior side and CLT ant TYS are about equal, at least for FOs. If we are able to grow that would probably change almost overnight. I live in TYS and choose to commute over sitting reserve here... aviation is a gamble, where you place your chips could be a bust -- then again you may strike it big. Either way you may want to rent for a bit until you decide to place all of your chips.

Again welcome aboard and best of luck.

 

Thanks for the info! If you don't mind me asking, where do you commute and how far in advance of your scheduled start do you leave?

 

Check PM.

Filler

 

Which is better in terms of upgrade times: PSA or Envoy?

 

That question is hard to answer. Noone knows future upgrade times. And past upgrade times have little to do with future upgrade times. Envoy has more guaranteed movement via flow. They also have more experienced pilots (more likely to get a job offer.) But current upgrade time is 8 years. PSA has less movement and 1000 guys hired in the last 2 years. With true upgrade of about 2 years. Which may start moving to 5 years. Doug wants flow to be 10.