Doesn’t have to be spread evenly to see reduced hours. Don’t forget trips being taken away for consolidation and ioe. More hires means less available trips to those outside training to allow those still finishing to finish. More people on reserve means you’re fighting more people for those trips on open time or the trade boards. Less lines because they take them for training means less line holders (even if it only affects a couple people). Those senior enough to hold a line were never that affected. It’s the people on reserve that aren’t being called and fight over the scraps.

 

You guys are missing the point. The hiring at the majors is going to slow. This is a temporary surge to replace the covid losses. It’s already changing.

 

we. shall. see.

 

You are missing the point. Every CA can generate - AT MOST - 1000 hrs a year of SIC flying. That’s it. There is no way around that. Every CA must AVERAGE 1000 hrs of SIC generated, just to pay the system back for the SIC they themselves used to become upgrade eligible. Every single CA leaving with less than 1000 hrs of TPIC is a net loss for the system in terms of generating the SIC hours needed even to maintain steady state. But FOs leaving for a major are an even greater problem. An 800 hour guy jumping to Frontier has cost the system 800 SIC hours, the equivalent to losing a CA with 1000 hrs of SIC and only 200 hrs of TPIC.

And the high time FOs are the FOs that you disproportionately lose, and the only replacements you bring in are zero time FOs which if you can’t fly them (because you don’t have the CAs TO fly them) or DON’T fly them (because you are devoting the available flight hours to getting more senior FOs upgrade eligible) are a total waste and economic drag on the system. And the FOs that have 1000 hrs of SIC and either can’t or won’t upgrade, are a total loss to the system in terms of addressing the current restraint.

Historically, you needed MORE CAs than FOs to be steady state because CAs being more senior had more vacation time, used more sick leave, were able to bid lighter schedules with more soft time, etc. Any regional with more FOs than CAs is likely already on a downward spiral. Yes, COVID caused early retirements brought it on faster than it would have otherwise happened but look at the aircraft orders for the majors. Even the LC/ULCCs have expansion plans. And look at the upcoming legacy retirement numbers.

Barring a major recession (which granted, could happen) I believe the regional model is in serious trouble.

https://youtu.be/49V1zgQTEO4

 

While I do think hiring will slow at the legacy level a disruption like what we’re in right now will not fix itself quickly. Nearly all regional have cut hiring of cfis because they have too many low time fos and with new pay rates they can’t sustain themselves by paying more and more fos to sit around and not fly. You’re seeing more ca leave to majors than there are upgrading which is only making the problem worse. It’s still in a downward trend and even if/when it equalizes because majors slow hiring again it’s going to take multiple years to rectify the hole regionals are currently digging. Even if it’s a temporary problem it’s not one that’ll be fixed in the next year. It may be another year or two of majors siphoning ca and high time fos let alone another 5-10 years to hire and train the replacement ca of all the ones that left.

 

Seriously. Black and white thinking is rampant in this industry. You have a point but it’s not as extreme as you make it out to be. The regionals don’t need to upgrade EVERYONE. Every upgrade will generate more hours for those FOs. Just a few is enough to keep the ball rolling. A few more than that and we expand. The money hunt is over. Captains are not going to the LCCs. They are holding out for the majors.

 

I beg to differ. Half my class at an ulcc is made up of former ca. I’ve had a few people relay to me their experiences at legacy interviews too. The gist being that out of all the interviewees none were regional fos and the ones who got a cjo were ulcc and lcc with most of the regional ca being left out to dry. Being typed in the same plane they fly is becoming a pretty big resume booster and without other significant contributions to resumes regional ca aren’t exactly a sure bet to get a cjo.

Money was a pretty poor reason to move over to an ulcc. Short term as a ca you’d be giving up money and sure maybe long term it was beneficial. Which if you look at the current year over increases it’s the same situation. With nearly every airline negotiating the regionals have finished with most majors still in the midst. Once that’s done it’ll again be the same financial decision. But there’s plenty of other reasons to go to an ulcc most of which is qol. Different airlines offer different qol to each individual based on where they live or their needs. In rare cases does a regional actually offer better qol and when it does at least from my perspective leads to lifers.

 

I've seen this with my own neighbor. CFI, hired by PSA at 1500 hours. As he was approaching 1000 hours SIC in the CRJ he got an interview with Delta and received a CJO. He went ahead and upgraded while waiting for indoc. Finished IOE and got a handful of PIC hours before putting in his notice and starting Delta indoc .

 

The problem there is that you’re going up against math with wishful thinking.

There is, by regulation, a hard cap on how much flying can be done. The number of captains is dictating where the cap is set. You talk about keeping the ball rolling, but what you describe is an airline forced to continually shrink. That is, by definition, not sustainable.

A few more obviously doesn’t equate to expansion, it equates to reducing the rate of the shrinkage. You need some more to get back to even. Expansion? That takes even MORE

 

Yeah, Pangolin. THIS ^^^^

it’s not some personal vendetta against regionals, it’s strictly theory of constraints. Every CA you lose is 1000 less hours the FOs can fly the next year. Every FO that you lose takes his/her SIC hours with them and will not contribute AT ALL to future CA upgrades at the regional. Regionals are bleeding experience and increasingly coming up against the hard limit of 1000 hours to upgrade. Add more zero 121 time FOs in at the bottom and the situation only gets worse, not better, since the limited SIC hours available must now be used to IOE and consolidate these guys/gals that will then sit on reserve and not fly because the more senior people are lineholders.

Right now a lot of regionals are like leaky boats whose bilge pumps can’t keep up with the leak. Eventually those boats sink if nothing else changes (like a serious recession).There is no gray area about it.