Where did you go?

 

I disagree completely. American seems to be taking a different approach to staffing its flying needs than Delta and United. I think Delta and American have a good idea about how to staff their WO regionals and control their product. United I think will begin falling behind in this respect very soon and their regional feed will be the first to hurt. But hey, the whole regional pilot shortage is about to turn into a train off the tracks by summer 2017. Who knows what happens next...

 

Congrats buddy!

 

How so? The flow? I don't think anyone is coming to PSA for 5/month.

 

Our flow will increase. It isn't going to stay at 5 /month indefinitely. And I'm talking more so about the overall "big picture". American seems to be taking a completely different approach than DA and UA. American, way more than the others is setting themselves up to try and maintain a larger regional network than their competitors. Which makes sense because they are a larger airline than either DA or UA. They are going for a cradle to grave approach which I don't think is necessarily stupid from their perspective. It helps make costs manageable and predictable. DA and UA seem to want to focus way less on their regionals and take back as much flying as is economically feasible to mainline. Which is good for regional pilots in the short term because it equals more mainline jobs. But what about 5+ years from now? American is setting up the infrastructure to offer a relatively streamlined career experience which I think long term will actually help them recruit pilots.

 

This is the problem. LOA 5 required a snapshot on Jan 1, 2016 of the number of Captains on property. Thereafter, for each net gain of 62 Captains PSA will increase the flow by 1 to a max of 8 per month. In 2016, that trigger never happened. A revisit of the numbers in May was delayed until June. The results are still unknown. 11 months of hiring at Americian triggered a flow for a total of 55 PSA pilots. So PSA can not increase flow without increasing Captains. Upgrades can not happen without filling new hire seats. Direct entry Captains happened for a period of time and it was reported as hurting new hire FO applications. Aircraft transfers were delayed. Upgrades did not happen in each month of 2016. More money, more money has helped fill the seats again. Great first step!

To promote 5-7 years to flow, well the facts do not support it. 1200-1500 pilots, and 5 flows a month, all the attrition in the world does not make that work. It's a vicious circle that has to be broken. PSA can't maintain the FO ranks because it is used as a "stepping stone". Upgrades are based on the FO ranks filled. At the current rate of 5 per month, the career expectations are much greater than 5-7 years. PSA does not support the "build it they will come" concept. At 10 flows per month, a true 5-7 year flow would exist. FO attrition would decrease, more Captains would upgrade, more new hires would come, especially since the money as been improved. Until PSA corrects the flat flow, the stepping stone concept will prevail.

 

How many 200s does psa currently have parked?

 

Fixed it for ya.

 

Then why is AAG continuing to buy RJs?

 

Gentlemen - how long could one expect to wait after sending PSA a begging letter, to receiving a reply regarding an interview?
Assuming, that is, you had an ATP, etc and reasonable hours?