A lil bit of info for those of you still job hunting...

Although UG time is all history, seems to hold a lot of weight with those of you who are looking at different companies. Currently, we are upgrading guys hired in 06/2001. That puts our upgrade time at about 7 years. No one was hired between 09/2001 and 01/2004 because we had AA pilots flowback and displace Eagle pilots. (long story, let not even start!) The guys hired in 01/2004 should be upgrading in the next couple of months, which makes their UG time, about 4 and a half years. There are only about 200 guys hired in 2004 that are still here so in theory, if we upgrade more than 200 guys this year (less than 20 per month which is likely for up) , the UG time will drop further. Eagle is still desperately hiring, and very short staffed, which also means that if you get hired here now, it is much less likely you will be furloughed and you will probably not spend very long on reserve.

Note: As mentioned earlier, UG times are simply history. They are like stock prices. The guys who are upgrading now were hired at a time when the upgrade time was 18 months, yet look how long it took them.

This is meant to be just a little bit of info those of you who are new to a 121 job. There is a lot of negativity floating around now about Eagle and I just wanted to clear up a few misconceptions. Its not the greatest place to be, but it sure is a LOT better than many regionals out there.

 

very good news....this is the news I got from a 12 year captain a few weeks ago and pretty much the news they told us when I interviewed

but again...nothing close to being set in stone

 

There are 4 main points to look at when trying to look and estimate an upgrade.
-Retirements (Not a lot at regionals..)
-Aircraft Orders/Deliveries (More planes, more pilots)
-Attrition (Pilots making stupid lateral moves, going to majors, or corporate)
-Recent hires/upgrade rate

For example, I hear RAH has an 18 month upgrade currently. My friend just finished training and told me that they hired 1,000 pilots in 2007 and are still upgrading 2006 hires. The upgrade rate would have to be quite a bit to sustain that.

 

Not to wizz in your cheerios here, but that will most likely change. It will most likely slow down dramatically due to the majors no longer hiring as well as the Frontier contract being done. However, guys could still leave for foreign carriers, or some places like Omni, World, ATI, etc that are still hiring.

 

not to burst your bubble again, RAH is now DOWNgrading captains....... do some research

 

Thats what Roper was saying I think. Currently, guys hired 18 months ago (2006) are upgrading but 1000 guys were hired in 2007 so it will probably take them a few years to just get through the 2007 new hires! So, his buddy will certainly not have an 18 month UG, unless something wild happens.

Too many people ask "what is the UG time at 'ABC' airline?" . This is a flawed question. As Roper said, there are really only 4 main things that create upgrades and in the current economy, Aircraft orders and attrition are much less likely to occur. Best of luck job hunters and dont rule Eagle out!

 

I think that was his point...

 

Yeah, guess so. It's a good point too. Don't chase upgrade. Sorry Roper92

 

well i suppose it coincides with aircraft orders but a critical factor in upgrade time is the growth or reduction of the flying. AE has a solid chance of losing some its flying if AMR continues with the divestiture.
Also, and this goes with attrition, AE has a lot of guys that got stuck here with the AA flowback and the disastrous post 9-11 years, and a lot of these guys now have no intention of going anywhere for the rest of their careers. They're making close to $100k (I've never understood why that's a magic number for self-contentedness) and are senior and have the inertia of age. It's true that all the regionals have these, but AE has a larger contingency than all others. And this slows upgrade time because a significant part of the captain pool is not in motion.
If letter 3 stuff ever gets sorted out it could have a significant impact if career Eagle guys decide to go to AA. But that's speculation.
Anyway, if things continue as they are now, which never happens, I could see a 4 year upgrade at Eagle. Possibly, just possibly, as low as 3 or 3 1/2 although most of the low time guys won't even have the hours to upgrade in 3 years. There's definitely a large x-factor in there with the divestiture.

 

Contract idea: Guaranteed CA pay after X number of years!