JohnnyDingus

No me!! Use me. I'll give you half. Let the bidding war begin.

pagey

Really?.......

TallFlyer

If the company wants to hand me an extra 5 grand, I've not no issues taking it from them. If a new hire wants to ask me any questions during training, I've got no issues with that either.

FYI, for you the difference between getting to flowing 8/month vs staying at 5 is 6-8 months difference in flow time. How many seniority numbers is that?

BRubble

Serious question - there are 20-25 threads on here with PSA pilots talkling about how much PSA management beats up on pilots, contract sucks, CEO sucks. Has any effort been made to address your complaints or fix the problems? I understand that there's a contest to see who can get the most referrals, but are things really getting better or did $5,000 bonus make all the problems magically disappear?

PSA help

All pilots hate their company/management. It is part of what makes us pilots. Our job is to fly airplanes and get paid as much as we can, while working as little as possible. Their job is to pay us the least amount and make the most amount.

They follow the majority of the contract, but it is not perfect. The union has to fight them when new items pop up. The only thing that is really upsetting is the critical pay arbitration. That has been ongoing for 2 years, and still isn't settled. That seems to stem from a bad arbitrator and our last MEC net telling us the whole truth.

Could things be better? Absolutely.
Could things me MUCH worse? Yes

TallFlyer

Eh, it's a regional, and so it will always have its issues, driven by the fact that the only reason any regional exists is to save money and pay its employees less money.

My personal experience thus far has been pretty good, but I've also never sat reserve and have always lived in base, so my life here has been pretty good. The SAP has always had its issues, but I usually get one of my top ten choices for lines and only need 1-3 transactions to get what I want.

For better or worse, PSA ALPA has taken the position that if the company wants to start throwing out a lot of money, that's going to help all pilots because it is more money for pilots, and has the potential to increase our flow numbers. There are those in the pilot group that strongly disagree with that approach.

So, a junior guy coming on now can expect a few things:
- You're going to sit reserve for a while, close to a year and a half in CLT or TYS, less than a year in DAY or CVG. (subject to change)
- Attrition will continue, hopefully shortening the time you're on reserve.
- You're actually going to get paid a decent wage. Not perfect, not what it should be, but decent.
- My own math shows time to flow for a new hire is 7-8 years.
- Upgrade is harder to predict, but two years seems reasonable.
- All of the above can be modified by the arrival (or not) of more airplanes.

In short, it's not all puppy dogs and rainbows. You will have frustrations, you will have disagreements with scheduling (keep it civil!), and you'll spend time wondering what the higher ups in DAY are thinking. I hardly think though that any of that is isolated to PSA, but rather traits shared by plenty of other FFD carriers.

In the end, if the bases and the above works for you, welcome aboard. I personally like my job. YMMV.

PSA help

I disagree with the idea that you will sit reserve for a long time if you are hired now. If you get in one of the classes this year, and we continue to fill classes moving forward, then you will not sit reserve long. You will have 50 people added to the list each month behind you. If we are filling classes, your reserve will only be a few months.

Even those hired at the end of 2014 were only on reserve a couple of months.

The reserve times only increase if we stagnate again.

Other than that, I agree with most of what TallFlyer said.

TallFlyer

Which is why I said "subject to change." I do agree that someone coming on now will sit reserve for less than what the latest awards are. How much less I've given up trying to predict.

The math of predicting flow is actually a lot easier.

PSA help

I will agree with this.

We are really short FO's right now. So, those that are on reserve right now should be holding lines as soon as those in class get out.

Did you see the new AA fleet plan - Update of October 11, 2016?

AA is parking 8 CRJ200 aircraft and adding another 18 CRJ700's and 18 CRJ900's. Republic is losing even more flying, and the wholly owned and mainline are picking up the slack.

We have a HUGE training department. They want us to grow.

TallFlyer

You have a link for that?