FutureMajor8

How does an airline determine if downgrades (CA-FO) are required and the amount of CA's to be downgraded? For example, lets say I'm in the top 30% at my airline, am I safe from getting downgraded? I have roughly 400 CA's below me at my regional.

rickair7777

Depends entirely on how many they will furlough.

In *normal* downturns, majors will furlough 10-20%, typically closer to 15%-ish. Mergers much over 30% typically mean liquidation, or merger if you're lucky.

Regionals don't directly follow that, it depends on their contractual circumstances and business opportunities (some have grown in past downturns, some have liquidated).

But if you know how many furloughs, downgrades should be about half of that number.

It would be weird to downgrade without furloughs, but since those are prevented by the CARES act you might see downgrades this summer to prep for furloughs this fall.

JohnnyBekkestad

Don't know where you work so i am going to use random numbers. But this is my basic math.
Assume you work for a company with 1000 pilots. And assume they furlough 20% and assume you are 40% seniority and assume you have 10% senior people ahead of you who are FO's and assume 10% senior CA to you choose to downgrade so that they can have a better quality of life. And assume 50/50 CA to FO after furlough. All these numbers are selected to make math easy... But in whatever number you want...

Before furlough you would be #400 of 1000 pilots (40%)
After furlough you would be #400 of 800 pilots (50%)
So just by this you would be the plug as a CA.
But since there we 100 pilots senior to you who were FO's you would actually be #300 of the pilot group.
But then you had another 50 CA who were senior to you that elected to downgrade since they would have a much better QOL. So you would be #250 of 400 CA.

captive apple

Single fleet?

FutureMajor8

Yes single fleet.

Serious question: there’s not nearly as much hysteria and fear of furloughs/end of the world predictions as there is in the “major” forum. Are the regionals primed to better whether this event? Are RJs more profitable during economic downturns? I’ve read regionals actually grow during downturns. How does ALPA and other unions allow this when pilots from their respective carrier are on the street?

JohnnyBekkestad

Typically regionals have been doing good, but this is a totally new scenario so no one knows...
Problem as i see it over at the majors is that the ones that are in danger are they ones that have left the regionals and given up a lot of to go over. Had they staid where they were they would probably be senior enough to withstand this hardship but now they might end up on the street. However here at the regionals, if you are at the bottom you are at the bottom, this is where you started and you are along for the ride, there is not much you can do about it and there is not much to regret as well...
I was planning for 2020 to be my year, started preparing, updated my apps, logbooks and now i am where i am and i have no idea when the hiring will be picked up again.

firefighterplt

Purely anecdotal, but those guys tend to be older, families/larger families, kids approaching/in college, more expenses. I also have some acquaintances who made it to the majors and started to get a taste of that big airline pilot money—and began to live accordingly. They seem to be sweating it more than the guys who decided to live more sensibly and build up a solid emergency fund—and they’re certainly panicking more than my buddies who are regional new hires.

It’s typically easier for a junior regional FO to adapt to UI or a lower paying job, plus youth does make it less terrifying to transition to a new/second career. I can only speak for myself in that regard, though.

Good luck, everyone.

rickair7777

Yeah, that's about right. Me personally, at this point in life I would not be happy if I had to transition back to the white-collar management grind. I'd be OK with a low-key office job but my resume screams leadership so I'd be overqualified for spreadsheet-filler jobs. Maybe try to get programming work... ideally work from home, they just tend to care that you can code, less worried about organization fit, over-qualification, etc.

We aren't very far out on the financial limb, so no big rush if it comes to that. Probably a good idea to keep the lifestyle somewhat modest for your first 3-4 years at a major, build the emergency find. That way if something happens you're not in a panic to shed expenses/debt, and you have a pile of cash to see you through. Or have a plan (and be mentally prepared) to rapidly shed overhead and luxuries.

ReadOnly7

And modesty.
🤭

rickair7777

It was relevant to the discussion because anyone from the mil is in the same boat.

And it's a bad thing if you're looking for a job in a downturn, I've seen senior O's struggle to find work even in the good times because their mil resume makes them look overqualified for many jobs.