It is straight forward and what you would expect. If you study and work hard, it is easy. If you are not prepared, you will fail.

Exactly what I would expect from any professional training department.

The training is really very good here. Lots of great instructors and good facilities.

 

So I guess my question is this: from this latest upgrade to today, how many guys are in line for an upgrade? I know there are some that will bypass, some won't make it etc., but based off the numbers you've hired does that push out the upgrade past the 3 year mark? My reasoning is someone eluded to the fact that 2015 was a massive hiring wave. Therefore after this pilot upgrades does the upgrade time trend up or remain the same, at the 2ish year mark?

Thanks everyone for the help; former RJ captain that is sitting on the streets (long story short, don't leave a good company for a crappy company thinking that bigger airplane that is painted in the same color that matches your paycheck is a step up) thinking that PSA is the way to go because of the SAP. I just don't want to be right seat loner then necessary if I don't choose to be. Also I'm hedging my bets with the flow if needed. Speaking of flow, how does it stack up? How many guys are leaving a month outside of the flow? Also is there any opportunities for FO's to enter into the training department?

 

Upgrades are going to the middle 500's on the seniority list and there are just over 1200 on the list. The numbers are all twisted up though because there are many, many, many captains already between 550ish and 1200. If we are able to continue filling seats in classes and grow somewhere near the desired end state, I would think that upgrades would remain in the 2-3 year range for some time.

We are losing more per month outside the flow than we are to the flow... I don't know that anyone has the exact figures but it is safe to say we lose 10-15 a month outside of the flow and 5 a month to the flow.

Initial training prior to sim stage is conducted predominately by FOs in DAY... so yes, there are training department opportunities for you quickly.

 

Its all speculation their currently upgrading around the 550 seniority number with 1200 on the list now. Theres been plenty of time for the large majorities of the FOs to build their 1000 SIC so I do not foresee any large amount of bypassing in the future. Alot of FOs have their time now and are waiting to upgrade. Question is now how long will it take to upgrade behind 600 or so other FOs at PSA.

Theyve been upgrading at about 8-12 or so the last few months, expecting a large upgrade class coming but Id personally expect to see the upgrade time go upwards of 2.5-3 years.

 

2015 hires should start seeing upgrades by the summer. In my class, there were roughly 30 new hires. Of that amount, there are only 6 of us left that haven't upgraded or left. A lot of the 2015 hires were CAs so once the list hits the 2015 hires it will be moving pretty quick regardless.

 

With new hire classes of 25 and the 35 additional 700s coming, upgrade time should drop to ~18 months. If the new hire classes are larger, all the better.

Here's the math: there are currently ~550 FOs that are active (actually fly the airplane, not an instructor or management). We should be upgrading 24 a month minimum moving forward (12 every 2 weeks). Also, we lose about 12 FOs a month to other carrier but being conservative, let's just say that 6 will be above you on average. That means that you should move up 30 spots a month on the FO list. 550/30=18.3.

6 months from now, we will likely have 650 FOs on the list, so if you wait to get hired, it could be back to 2 years by that time.

We did have upgrade classes in 2015 that were much larger than 12 and on some months we upgraded 40. If captain attrition does what they expect it to, and new hire classes keep filling up, upgrade time will be less than 2 years.

Don't forget that we have several months in early 2016 where we only hired 8-10 a month, and some of them have already left. In one month, we could upgrade 6 months of new hires easily.

Expect attrition to increase from the current level of 25 a month in 2017 by at least another 10 a month on average.

 

Pretty much spot on except for the last paragraph. There are no FO's currently in the Training Department. All Ground School Training is done by Full Time Instructors. A few CVG Sim Instructors are teaching IPT's in DAY. We are short on FO's so the practice of them teaching in the Training Center came to a halt last Spring. Will it change anytime soon? Can't say for sure. My guess is probably not, considering we need to fill FO seats on the additional 700's that are coming.

 

There used to be quite a few GIP on the seniority list that are FOs, and there are still a handful. Most of them were hired as full time instructors and many do not hold a medical, but they are pilots and are on the seniority list as FO's.

Take a look at the most recent seniority list on FLICA. I can count several still. They are still on there, but not as many as there used to be. Even as recent as a Feb 2016 hire.

 

That's a change I was unaware of... thank you for the update.

 

You are correct. The Supervisor of Ground Training is a qualified Line FO. Last year when Training was slow, a few that were hired as GTI's went to the Sim and got themselves fully qualified. A few of them stayed on the Line as FOs.

What I am talking about, and what I felt Dubz was talking about was the program where new hire FO's would go to the line, get consolidated and then return to the Training Department as IPT Instructors. As I said that ended last Spring.