6 year captain? You’d have been on pay band C. At line holder pay min guarantee, you should have JUST broken the $80k barrier and as a reserve pilot (if you bid to be… and if you lived in base, I’d have bid reserve last year) you’d definitely have broken $80k.

Did you have some unpaid leave? Drop some trips?


Of course I’m assuming this is in reference to breaking $80k at Envoy in the post above.

So who was on the fence about leaving and had their mind changed by this $150k ?

I'm ~ 3 years best guess from flowing after 5 years at PSA. I have/had two interviews at LCCs. One would get me a local no more commuting base right away, the other would hopefully get me a local no more commute base after a year or so (?). I did some really basic rough numbers and it was roughly the same amount of $$$ between staying for flow to AA and the other two choices up to about the 10 year mark but after that the price delta at AA really starts take effect but I was hoping to retire in 13 years from now... (second career, small pension from first career...)

Guess my biggest fear at the moment is that I say no to the 30k (that I have to say yes or no to by 1 October) only to not get the call from one of my interviews. I'm not poor or anything but I could put that $30k to good use. On the other end of the spectrum... I take the $30k and THEN get the call up to a major ! While I have the discipline to keep that money on hand to repay... then I'll have all the headaches of corrected W2s, getting my taxes back, union dues back, etc, etc...

Thoughts ?

If you're not going to stick around AA long enough to reap the benefit (obviously you need to consider retirements in that calculus), then get your LCC seniority asap. Fixing W2's isn't that hard.

Also anyone would sleep better at night with LCC seniority in hand, vice regional seniority with hopefully/maybe AA seniority someday.

If it makes any difference, this programs most profound effect is likely to be substantially slowing flow times for people near the top as it reduces attrition most acutely for that group

I beg to differ. The number of pilots leaving above me outside of the flow has accelerated compared to pre-Covid.

Well... if we could get an accurate seniority list and a better guess at flow time, that may keep me at bay. As said I've only interviewed at this point, no offers yet !

Keep delaying while people junior to you get class dates

Unfortunately this is a question that really only you can answer. For what it's worth though I don't think either option is necessarily a bad one, it's just pros and cons.

What I would say though is that if you want to retire in 13 years, my advice would be the LCC route. 10-13 years at a low cost carrier will get you much more seniority and quality of life than 10 years at AA after waiting to flow will.

If you're really on the fence I'd say to turn down the 30 grand, and then if you wind up flowing anyway you'll still get the 70 grand on your last paycheck.

And potentially the other $50K as well.

How is applying and going to interviews delaying ? I mean if I had any say in the matter, I'd already be gone ! but alas I can't force them to offer me a position...

this is a bit of a “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin question”

my comparison is 2022 actual attrition vs 2022 alternate universe no-bonus attrition. The people who are most strongly incentivized to stay are the ones closest to flow.

Yeah it would be interesting to see the numbers on how many people who were otherwise planning to leave are now staying because of the money.

Anecdotally it seems that it's mostly just free money for those who planned to stay anyway. Then again attrition always shows down the closer you get to flow.

It should be 0 unless they can't do math

I do think it's funny how suddenly so many pilots are acting like major airlines are hammering down their doors begging them to come fly for them.

It's definitely easier to get hired than it has in the past, but with the way airline hiring goes you could be fully qualified and get nothing but thanks but no thanks without any explanation.

You said I wonder how many are staying rather than leaving, implying there are people turning down job offers or pulling apps out.

No I meant how many who were never planning to wait for the flow were convinced to stay. If someone has a job offer at a major they should definitely say no to this.

Personally I have an interview with a legacy carrier but will almost certainly turn down a job offer to stay for the flow. The extra money has nothing to do with it. I would have made the same decision without the bonuses because I don’t want to move and commuting for the next 20+ years is not an option for me and mine. The flow itself is what keeps me here, lame as it sounds. Without it, myself and many others would jump at whoever called first. I personally think the only people that this money will be the sole reason why they don’t leave is because they took the 30k and then for whatever reason felt they couldn’t get it all back to the company within the 30 days. I would think that pilots here are smart enough to move on to majors vs staying for a measly 30k. I’m pretty set on flowing but I still wouldn’t take the money if I felt like I couldn’t pay it back in time.

That's why so many of us are scratching our heads at their choice of throwing a bunch of money at this retention problem. Not that those who are going to AA don't want it, but those who are trying to get out, generally don't care about a theoretical bonus years down the road, as opposed to seniority and money at another airline NOW.

Guess we'll see how it plays out, and fairly quickly too, would be my guess.

Often the simplest, easiest solution is not the solution that solves the real problem. But it is fast and easy.

I just keep wondering how effective it'll even be in the short term.

From the anecdotal evidence I've gathered from talking to people with more/less seniority than I - everyone is bailing out as fast as possible.

Funny thing that almost everyone seems to agree on - if they would have cranked up the flow they probably could have kept everyone from bailing without throwing money out at us AND had a line out the door of people that would flow in ~5 years instead of 10 :huge shrug: but hey what the f^&* do we know...

I just work here...

I'm near atp mins and I 100% want to go to an AA WO.

Having a hard time choosing between the three.

Can someone give me the pros and cons of each? And which one has the slowest flow, and fastest flow?

Flow speed is 1) not a reasonable metric to pick 2) not reasonably forseeable now anyway

look at flow as career insurance. You have a backstop against being a regional lifer but it is NOT plan A

100%.

Most people forget the other benefit. At airlines with a flow, there is "guaranteed" attrition at the top to keep the list moving. You know that you will always be working yourself towards a captains seat (as long as something like COVID doesn't stop all hiring again). Some airlines see most of their attrition from the middle or bottom of the list. With a flow, you know that there will always be at least a good percentage of movement off of the top of the list.

All regionals going forward are going to have attrition higher than any flow and with practically the same “guarantee”. Flows don’t work if mainline ain’t hiring.

First, more than one has to give you a job offer before you have a choice.

Second, assuming you have a choice, pick the one that lets you live in base, or has a base you're willing to move to and not resent it.

There are LOTS of reasons to go to a WO apart from flow, first being the money they seem to want to throw at us, second being the non rev benefits, which will be far and away better that a SKW or RAH assuming you're traveling in the AA system. Loads still suck, but hey, that's revenue.

More than ever, flow rate for new hires shouldn't even be in the top 5 factors of consideration, because there is SO MUCH happening right now between mainline hiring and COVID shenanigan's. Not only that, but the topic of which LCC my FO should bail to comes up with pretty much every FO I fly with.

could you explain this in more detail please? I understand that a WO pilot is considered the same as a mainline pilot when it comes to standby travel and that its check in based not senority. But what does that mean for a Republic pilot who wants to fly standby on AA. where does he fall in?

At the very bottom. Under just about everyone else. If they can put a bag in the seat, they will, before they put a RJET pilot there.

Even with the best travel benefits (which the AA WO have), it is very difficult to non-rev right now. Commuting is terrible. But trying to commute off-line is unbearable. I have seen pilots list for 5-6 fights between hubs and still not get a seat. They spend all day trying to commute and still not get on.

In particular offline jumpseaters are junior to retirees, parents and buddy passes. (Although eligible for the actual jumpseat which sometimes helps)

2021 nailed it. I can't say exactly where you'd be on a RAH, SKW, or Mesa flight as a WO pilot, but in the back of the airplane on mainline or the WOs your odds are way better than those other guys. I really can speak the details of the RAH JS kerfuffle as of late, but I rarely find myself on a RAH flight out of CLT if I'm going somewhere.

Pretty much this. A WO pilot essentially has a LOT more on-line opportunities than a non-WO pilot with regard to commuting, all other things being equal.