New upgrade mins at TSA
 

Upgrade mins were just lowered at TSA to 2000 total, 1000 multi, and 500 turbine...but the company also will credit you hour for hour in company 145s up to 500 hours for total time, allowing people to upgrade at 1500 total. Pretty wild when you consider there mins were 4000 hours less then six months ago. For you at other regionals with 145s or 200s, what are your upgrade mins?

...good lord...

Note to self: Don't let family fly on TSA.
All of this to avoid hiring street captains.....

Oh come on. Dont knock the tsa crews. I posted this just to compare what the mins are at other places Ive heard xjt is similar but just wanted to compare. And these are mins. Awards will be by seniority. I dont want this to turn into another low timers flamefest. If you need to flame search for some previous threads. There are plenty of them there.

AWAC is just an ATP... so as low as 1500 TT. No one ever upgrades that low though.

Here's my beef... You can be an Captain on a 50 seat regional jet at 1500 hours, but you can't fly a King Air or Learjet at most places with less than 2000 hours.

I understand the market forces and its great that TSA guys get to move up quickly, but at what point is there a safety concern with crews? 1000 hour captains? I think it'd be an interesting safety study to examine the habits of the 1500 hour captain compared to the 4000 hour captain. History does say that, to a point, complacency is more dangerous than newbness.

Edit: Also, there is a big difference from having the mins set low and actually employing people at those mins. TSA is probably one of the first to realistically use guys at that level.

you gotta be freakin joking me now...i thought 2200 hrs was more than low enough, 1500 hrs is gonna be quick for everyone...well, a little longer for the 250 hr wonders...but wow. Kinda sux, kinda scary, with those requirements i'm 5 months from upgrade...and yeh, im close w/ senority too...(Sept. 06 new hire)

Hi!

USA Jet is still holding out with 3000 TT for Falcon upgrade-not sure how long we can keep it up.

Just last year my buddy had to go to ERJ FO for a while after being a J41 capt for 2+ years-how times change!

cliff
YIP

I wonder if they are doing this to keep their guys from jumping ship over to big UAL......I posted the latest (06-28-07) mins for UAL in the other thread....(keep in mind they are still subject to change)......just my .02

Well if that's the case, can I be a street captain?

Nope, we were told in class today, memo was handed out as well.

just seems funny...when i got here we felt lucky to be hired as "low" timers...we expecting a 2-3 year upgrade...drop to year and a half...now it's just about at a year, and the upgrade flight times wouldn't have even gotten a person in the door @ TSA a year and half ago. Im gonna go read through that systems manual again now.

Just think, two years ago you didn't get looked at with less than 2000 hours. I don't think there's anybody in my class with more than 1000 hours.

I cant find this memo on tsa website... Is it to fresh to be posted there??

Hard copy just came out today. Check your mailbox in the crew room.

1500, 1000. 500 doesnt mean your an automatic captain at those hours. everybody else ahead of you has to upgrade. Once again TSA management proves to be worthless.

I'd be cautious about a quick upgrade as well - the wash-out rate for Captains was high enough when the min's were 4K, and then 2.5K...imagine what they'll be at 1500TT...

Maybe TSA is hoping this will "attract" more applicants, knowing they can upgrade in no time at all......????

to mking, the reason the minimums are so low currently is because the company (in their infinite wisdom) had run out of qualified upgrade candidates ... aka, everyone before you already had been called. With the new requirements, that should make about 45 more people eligible for upgrade immediately, and the new hire class that was behind those 45 people will begin to be eligible within the next 3 months...hope all those guys are ready with only one year on the dang airplane.

as far as attracting more people...i dunno, but, this might be their ploy to retain some of the ones they have...at least from the FO ranks, where attrition is worse than on the captain side.

Sorry if this is a "dumb" questions, as I don't know much about TSA other than they fly as UA Express.....but.....

Are they lowering them because they are planning on taking delievery of any new aircraft and will need more cpt's to fill the new seats?

Just a thought!!!!

Nope. Flynavyj hit the nail on the head. They're trying to give us an incentive to stick around versus leaving in droves like FOs have been. No new flying, no new planes and this came from the CFO's mouth Tuesday.

Does anybody else find it odd that seems there are few pilots here that have been with the company between 2 and about 7 years, yet there are a ton at the higher end of the list?

I guess they are scared that ya'll are going to be leaving in droves to United as they are gearing up "open the gates" for new hire F/O's? Thinking with the pay raise that comes with the seat, then you won't go?

Best of luck to all of you in which ever you choose.

good reason for the lack of 2-7 (think its closer to 2-4) year FO shortage a good chunk of it has to do with the furloughs, when 80 people left the company just over a year ago, almost none came back...why? Most had other jobs within a week, several friends said "i was furloughed for all of 2 days" and the jobs they got gave them much better QOL than a TSA FO whether that was corporate or other 121 gigs.

The way the company is currently running things they're running out of options quickly. They've lowered hiring minimums as low as they can go, they've lowered captain minimums as long as they can go, bonuses probably won't do much to try to steal pilots from other airlines as no one would bite at them. The guys with 250 hrs are going to use this place as a stepping stone, because even though they're @ the airlines, they'll be marketable to greener pastures as soon as IOE is complete. Things are gonna have to change at this place, or it's going to bury itself, and management won't even see it coming.

Yeah, I know a couple of those guys and they resigned and went to other regionals before their furlough dates even came up.

You know, I wonder how much money is being hemmoraged that would be saved in the long-term by making it a little more enticing to work here by paying better or having better work rules...

I was kicking myself for about three minutes for leaving TSA last month when I found out about the lowered times this morning...But then I came to my senses and realized I had left the place for a reason (and that reason had nothing to do with upgrade). It will take a little bit longer to Upgrade where I am now, but it will be a much "sweeter" upgrade :-)

same boat as you. put in the i quit letter, and a week later the memo was out. but i'll be living in domicile with the new gig, and flying a nicer AC.

I understand why they are lowering the mins......it is pathetic though. I cant imagine why they cant "attract" more pilots.....ha. Hulas needs to get the &^%* out of the airline business.

Those are words of wisdom. You are absolutely correct. The only problem is - what happens to TSA's Pilots once he wants out? Does he sell to his kids who tank the company, sell to another regional, go bankrupt, etc...? Only time can tell ;-) Hulas may be an awful Airline-dude, but it's his company (i.e. his baby - though he doesn't treat it like so!) and he's probably one of the few that want to see it around...

Hulas is currently about as far out of the picture as he can be, (he seems to have bought a nice $7m house down in florida)...apparently his daughter has some interest in running the company, so she'll probably be the next Hula's successor.

King, it's no surprise that TSA can't attract pilots, as it's not an attractive airline. I was born and raised in STL, and this airline was a niche' for me b4 and after the furloughs, as living in base (at the folks place) makes first year FO pay more than bearable, and when i start commuting from MCI it'll still be a "drive" away @ worst. If i wasn't from the area, i wouldn't have even thought of applying here, especially with the current state of the industry...of course, when i got on, the industry wasn't "quite" where it is now...TSA was getting close though.