For the fact seekers, as Ive said a few times before, my experience has been as follows.

I got hired at presumably "the worst" time in recent PSA history. After my class, the company only hired about 20 people in 6 months. So, seniority wise, I was pretty stagnant. Despite that fact, I still held the base I wanted pretty much right out of training, and only actually spent about 6 months on reserve. Ive also experienced a 50% jump in pay, thanks to the retention bonuses and higher hourly rate. Now, with right around a year with the company, I comfortably hold a Rd1 line, where I have been for the last 4 months, and been able to SAP all the days off I want and need. I also have my birthday, christmas and new years off. As well as every weekend.

I submit to you, what other regional would a guy with less than a year be flying a round 1 line and have every weekend off and any other holidays I want? That was a HUGE reason I chose PSA and so far, I have not regretted my decision. That combined with the bases and my ease of commute. This company is not perfect and has plenty of issues, like many others. But when I polled my buddies at the other regionals, and they were all 3 years down the road and still on reserve, that made my decision to come here very easy.

Also, on one other note. I dont have a lot of experience, as this is my first airline, but largely, I have noticed while jumpseat commuting, our planes are overall pretty decent. In 1 year and over 500hours of flight time, its actually rare that we have any more than 1 or 2 minor MEL's, like a switch light out or something like that. Other carriers, who will remain nameless, Ive jumpseated with have all kinds of major maintenance issues and this MEL'd/Broken. Also, many of the guys who jumped ship from other regionals and came here back in 14/15 have said that despite our other issues, the planes we have and our maintenance is decent.

Take that for what its worth. You gotta do whats best for you and pick based on your needs and your family, but this was the kind of stuff I looked for when I was choosing a regional to go to.

 

Anyone know how many started today?

 

25 is what I count.

 

And that's with people bypassing for the holidays. January is going to be a big month. Last I heard classes were full through February now.

 

As of this interview group this past Wednesday, they still had a few openings in some of the January classes, but not many. Have heard that some classes of 35+ have been approved, but they always expect a few people not to show up. So, if you want a class date, PSA will make room for you (if you have an ATP).

The ATP-CTP classes are filling very quickly from what they said because there is a maximum number of seats in each class. I think it is 24 or 25 per class for ATP-CTP.

For those not needing an ATP, they are making room in classes. PSA learned it's lesson once when they slowed hiring for a few months. They will not let it happen again.

 

Do you think that an ATP hired this week will likely get a January class?

 

Yes. Check PM.

 

I asked Dion about this very thing at one of the town halls. He denied there was a decision to slow hiring....applications just slowed down. Of course that coming from a guy who willfully breaks a legal contract.

 

Obviously that's a lie, they stopped hiring FO's completely at one point.

What you should of asked him is why he is allowed to report "handicapped" performance numbers to his superiors, but we are not allowed to use this excuse with our superiors.
"We as mgmt need to be reviewed through the lens of handicapped performance numbers, but you as pilots need to be on time, period"
O yea were also admitting were screwing you on pay and can calculate exactly how much through this "handicap".
Every time you push late just send [handicap] to dispatch

 

Interesting.
So Dion would have us believe that they stopped hiring f/o's because f/o candidates stopped applying at exactly the same time as street Captain candidates started applying, en mass.

Did I get that right?