Fixed it for ya.

My schedule has been great. I've had every major holiday off. I live in base. I spent no time on reserve. I'm upgrading after 1.5 years. Don't worry about the flow.

You will face reserve time now but nothing like any other contract carrier. The upgrade will slow if AA allows our staffing to become critical.

Best of luck.

Yes, we are going to face a personnel issue soon(but who isn't?). AA knows how to fix the problem. No one knows how long until they bite the bullet.

 

PSA has the best schedule flexibility in the industry - mainline or regional. It is one of the only good parts of the contract. Once you hold a line, you pretty much work whenever you want, and that is it. People that are hating on PSA's contract have no idea what they are talking about. The only bad part is the pay scale and the 12/4. Both of these are things that will be going away quickly. And once they do, PSA's contract will be well above the half way point. Pay will improve before summer is over or we will start to lose people and park airplanes. AAG will not let this happen.

I am not a PSA cheerleader. There are bad parts about working here, but it is not the contract. It is the company not following the contract that they agreed to. The management are cheating us, and we are fighting them through he arbitrators.

About scheduling flexibility.

During the SAP (schedule adjustment period), you can drop or add any trip with no regards for holidays or how many reserves are available. There is no reason that a line holder should ever work Christmas, New Years, birthdays, 4th of July, Super Bowl Sunday, etc... unless you want to.

If you want to take 2 weeks off in July, you can - and do so without using vacation time. You just drop down to 65 hours of credit and have 16 days off. If you want to credit 100 hours in February, you can. Just pick up additional trips and make more money so you can pay off your bills.

It is the best part of the contract by far. Personally, it is worth quite a bit to me to be able to do this. In the 9 months, I have not worked one trip that I was awarded. I have dropped and picked up better trips. I am able to fly with people that I like, have layovers that I like, pick up higher credit trips, and be off when I want to be off. I avoid overnights that I don't like, and drop trips with people that I do not like.

 

Do you live in a current PSA base? If so that would be a huge factor in favor. Commuting sucks, commuting to reserve sucks worse. If you're single with no family and can live cheap then commuting for a regional isn't that big of a deal, but if you have/want any sort of family life then living in base is the best.

 

I don't think you're "missing" anything.

Management thought that the quick upgrades would keep pilots coming to new hire class. They were wrong. Then they thought that bringing-on 24 additional, shiny, new 900's would keep pilots coming to PSA. Again, they were wrong. Then they thought that increasing the flow from 4/month to 5/month would keep 'em coming. It didn't. Then they thought that offering a $5000 signing bonus would keep 'em coming. It hasn't. Now they're praying that some kind of "cadet program" will bring the pilots. It won't.

I hear that the latest newhire class had 3 people in it. Unless (and until) PSA management (and AAG) stop offering gimmicks and gets serious about significantly increasing pay,....... there ain't gonna be 1000 pilots hired in the next 2 years,....... or maybe even the next TEN years!

But Dougie, Dion, and the boys really have their hearts set on those 900s. So it's my guess that they will eventually get serious about staffing this place.

I don't know what they're "advertising", but yeah, you can modify your schedule, (after you become a round 1 line holder), to a significant degree,...... now that they've actually allowed the SAP to work! So there's that.

Critical pay was SUPPOSED to be trips paid at 1.75 x your normal pay rate, as an incentive to get pilots to voluntarily pick up trips (on their day(s) off, when staffing is short. They use to publish a grid showing the number of open trips, the number of reserves available for that particular day, and if the number of reserves were sufficient for that day. If the number of reserves were INSUFFICIENT for that day,..... it was "critical" that someone voluntarily pick up the trip,.... on their off-day(s).

Well, management decided to get cute with the whole critical pay thing by not posting the grid,....... until AFTER the month is over and by arbitrarily changing the number of required reserves, sometimes to zero, (which is obviously ridiculous).

 

This is riddled with wrong but you have the general idea.....kind of.

At then end of the day the company is fraudulently manipulating staffing numbers to avoid paying us a significant sum of money.

It also negatively affects a huge QoL portion of the contract.

 

Critical pay is 1.5, junior man is 1.75.

 

Not sure what planet you live on, but the 12/4 and pay are not going away soon. That is part of the crappy 10 year contract we have now, which was extended to the 10 years because of LOA #4 being voted in. So unless they do away with all of that we will not see it gone soon.

 

They will hire, it will just take more to entice the pilots. The head cheese is very smart, he new he could staff PSA up to a certain point based on movement. Envoy's head cheese was a ramper, the PSA guy was the head of all Express for the mgnt that took over at AA. That should tell you plenty. Envoy is very valuable as a ground service company that's why the boss was a ramper. As much as pilots love to hate them these people know what there doing. I heard PSA just put a new sim in Clt, that along with all the money spent in Dayton are very strong signs of the commitment, and consequently does show that PSA would have gotten the 900's regardless.

 

Go to Skywest, within 6 months you will have over 400 people below you........Choose PSA and you will have less than 75.

 

Or endeavor and make over 50k your first year and have 400 below you in 6 months as well. With a delta interview as well