The sad fact is that AA will NEVER have much difficulty filling their mainline pilot needs. They don’t NEED flow for that. It is their wholly owneds rosters that are the difficulty, and the longer they can keep pilots trapped at the regional the easier it is for the recruiters.

And the more retiring military in their forties they can keep putting ahead of the regional flow guys at the major, the lower they can keep the average longevity pay down at the major too. Don’t believe for a second that the green eyeshade guys in accounting don’t calculate how much that saves down to the last dollar either.

No, it can’t. It’s part of the contract and the pilot union would have to agree to removing it or American would have to go bankrupt. The later is what happened to the American Eagle pilots back in the day.

And how hard is a quickie bankruptcy? Republic did one while they were still operating at a profit just to get rid of 50-seat flying contracts that were costing them a little profit. All it takes is a little creative accounting as a willing bankruptcy court judge:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/trave...able/81035522/

You can CLAIM anything you want, but flow agreements are written in smoke.

That's why the flow agreements survived 9/11, 2008 financial meltdown etc...?

Do you have a poster or two of Delta pilots in your bedroom or something?

It's not that simple, it is a Letter of Agreement in the pilot contract so to remove or amend that agreement requires the pilot union's endorsement as well. I am not worried about that conversation even starting because it would be operational suicide. Management has already had to throw money at all 3 WOs over the past 3 years to stem retention and help recruitment, if they took away our biggest motivator for staying in the middle of a worsening pilot shortage the operation would assuredly implode as pilots left for anywhere and everywhere.

You guys realize the flow has been throttled even in recent history? Like in the last 3 years or so. It's a gimmick to keep your wages suppressed, nothing more.

Time to replace batteries in your sarcasm detector.

I was wondering about that. I erred in the wrong direction on this one. ;)

Okay? My post was in reference to the idea that the flow would be outright cancelled, not sure what the intention of yours is - especially as this LOA gets us marginally higher rates on 50 seat flying than SkyBest....