Originally Posted by CLT Guy

Welcome to the forum Devil Dog. I thought you took another job with an ACMI? If so, good luck. I hope you enjoy it there.

Anyway, I occasionally like PSA. Usually it is just after a good overnight, with a good crew, on a nice sunny morning. Then, something "PSA" happens and it ruins everything. Sometimes it is payroll screwing up my paycheck and short paying me AGAIN. Other times, it is our D.O. calling and threatening pilots into working when they are not legal to do so. Another time it is seeing an FO get displaced off of a line that they hold and put back on reserve. Or, even better, it is our union caving to the company and screwing the pilots again...and again...and again.

Operationally, PSA is a very dysfunctional place. Dispatchers don't take things such as weather and MELs into account when dispatching airplanes. Scheduling is inept at best. It takes 3 write-ups to get maintenance to actually fix anything (op's check good?). The safety department does not share important information that may be important until well after the fact and prefers to hide issues (just read about the single engine landing in ATL a month after it happened).

Or how about this new crap with LCA's being considered CQFO's and flying in the right seat to help the company? The LCAs are directly stealing money from the FO's, the days are not going critical, and the pilot group seems cool with it.

PSA is going to have some serious staffing issues pretty soon. There were less round one lines this month, and many captains who held round 1 lines are back on reserve. Most of these were street captains and came to PSA with 6-9 years of experience at other regionals. There are pilots with 10,000 hours of flight time and good records that will be on reserve as captains for at least another 2 years. Many are planning on jumping ship at the first chance. I saw dozens of PSA pilots at job fairs recently, and I wish them all luck.

If you think that we are having a very hard time hiring pilots now, imagine how bad it is going to be once the PSA MEC starts informational picketing at job fairs. Our new hires will drop from an average of 9 per class to 3 per class, and the relationship between our company and pilots is going to get even worse. And they despise us already. It will soon be even worse.

The growth has stopped at PSA. There may be another couple 900's coming in, but no one expects the 700's to ever come over and the 200's will likely leave soon. That means that you had better be in the base and seat that you want to be in now, because upgrades are done. We don't have FO's to replace the FO's that we are losing, never mind the captains that are leaving, and we will just park airplanes every time we lose enough captains. New hires may never see a round 1 line, and the benefits of the SAP.

PSA had a great chance to succeed. It was poised to be a good place. The schedule flexibility is great, the contract really isn't that bad, the growth was amazing. Sure, we had a 12/4, but with the growth and flow, no one would ever hit those points. But, as tends to happen, American Airlines management completely screwed everything up. Dion and his crew came in and treat the pilots like crap every chance that they get. It is now a terrible place to be. It probably isn't quite as bad as Envoy, I will admit, but we will be soon.

What the management does not realize is that every time they treat the pilots like crap, they make more trouble for themselves. I know guys that had purposefully waited until the outstation to call in sick just to screw the company. Or write up the airplane and cancelling a flight. Or sit back and laugh when scheduling is calling for a junior man assignment. Or save their sick time for days that have the fewest number of reserves on the reserve grid.

I am waiting for the critical pay arbitration to come back in a few weeks and see how much we are screwed over by that. And the new flow negotiations in June. I will bet that neither of these things go the pilots way.

Well, here I sit, in one of the worst hotels in our system. It is going to start raining soon. The inbound flight is delayed. My FO went to riddle. My FA's were working at fast food restaurants just a few weeks ago. Today is NOT going to be a good day. Today is going to be what I call a "PSA DAY".

Originally Posted by Av8er1550

So with PSA. The $10,000 retention bonus is not for new hires correct? New hires ONLY get the sign on bonus?

Originally Posted by Av8er1550

So with PSA. The $10,000 retention bonus is not for new hires correct? New hires ONLY get the sign on bonus?

Originally Posted by T1000

Plus don't forget that it teaches you to be frugal so that you won't waste all the money your going to make way off in the future!

Originally Posted by JohnnyDingus

Yeah they are actually doing you a favor by teaching you this lesson. Be thankful they don't charge you.