I received an email last week from Eagle announcing lower minimum times. Given what I have read here though, it seems hiring is generally slowing down. Is Eagle one who is still hiring at a decent clip or are they struggling to find applicants due to the long upgrade times?

 

think a struggle to find qualified applicants is what lead to the lowering of the hiring minima. How "strong" the hiring is over there, im unsure, but i'd expect it to taper off (just as everyone else has) for the next few months. So, they're still hiring, but....it's not Summer 07 again.

 

Latest I heard from the training department is 2 classes of 30 as far as the eye can see. I started in Jan and I already have almost 200 behind me. They are still hireing like crazy.

 

Short answer:
Expect hiring to continue for a good while. If you haven't read the thread about service changes for the summer, do so then read the rest of this post.

Long Answer:
(please keep in mind that this is my opinion based on second-hand information from an ALPA rep who got the info second-hand...insert grain of salt)

American has been coming to Eagle for months saying that they want increased flying out of ORD (while almost every other 50-seat operator is cutting back). For months, Eagle management has said, no we cant do it, we don't have the staffing to do this. At this point American said that they would like to shuffle flying out of STL and into the ORD system. Eagle management being wise to the fact that having "blue chickens" or AX airplanes at ORD may result in fist fights suggested that Connection do some of Eagles ERJ flying out of MIA (already being conducted mostly by ORD crews) and expand the ORD flying with the crews that are no longer needed in MIA.

One of the theories of whole-ownership is that it inherently decreases costs. Aside from some very limited savings through shared facilities and weather/phys. on call/planning/medical, the bulk of cost benefits comes from the fact that Eagle does not have to make a profit. That is AMR makes a profit for the total seats sold on AA/AE and does not have to pay another party for the flying. The bean counters now think that AE is too expensive because we have senior ranks and thus higher labor costs than RAH or TSA, so they are putting pressure on senior captains to "move up" in their careers (a notion that has NOT been that well received).

While all of this is going on, the company realizes that they have the ability to expand ORD flying through better aircraft utilization. They further realize that there is good profit potential through this since any expanded flying would be done by new upgrade captains (who cost less) and new hire FOs (who cost almost nothing). I personally expect that if recruiting can get the numbers they need, we will get the MIA flying back and keep the expanded ORD flying.

All of that being said, the outlook for hiring looks good through about August where I would expect to see continued hiring but with smaller classes. This is all just my guesses but at least with all of this you know where the guess is coming from.

 

considering they are junior manning capts to fly as FO's I think hiring will continue for quite sometime.

 

I started class March 17th. My class had 21. The class of March 31st had 43 people in the class. The next class has over 40 confirmed.

My AE ground instructor is flowing back after this week for AA. He flowed-back to AE a few years ago and now he is going back to AA. So maybe this can point to some positive movements?

Our hotel had several AA recalled pilots last week and an APA welcome dinner. So there is another positive.

 

Who was your ground instructor??

 

.........T. Lowe

 

I have the AE interview this monday (14th), spoke to a captain a few days ago..said they were real short on pilots...he spoke with hr and said that they will be hiring well into the summer...again take as a grain of salt!

any tips or hints for the interview????

 

I'm stuck on the fence of whether to apply or continue instructing. I want to work for Eagle, but I dont want to get on with the bare minimums. Is it considered a bad thing if you get sent down to Vero Beach?