Banshee365

It would sure be ironic for me to vote for PBS (If I decide to do so) and then get furloughed...

Intl Jumper

Im no scientist, but if ALPA was telling you in a road show that the company wanted to furlough another 200 people, how exactly would this be selling you to vote in PBS? All benefits aside, PBS does reduce the total number of pilots needed as compared to the current bidding system. Would they put in another furlough clause only applicable to those that PBS would benefit? Because that definitely wouldn't be me...

PSACFI

Wait, does voting in PBS make the non-furlough clause void? If so how could the pro-PBS ALPA supporters and the company ever hope to get it passed?


In terms of "overstaffed" vs. "understaffed" ASA has a little over 10 pilots per aircraft (APC lists 159 a/c, but ASA is losing 6 CRJs soon right? so the APC numbers of 153 planes and 1547 pilots is what I based my ratio off of). If PBS reduces the need for 10% of the pilots (like I've heard it can) then that eliminates 154 additional pilot positions. So that will require nearly 300 pilots worth of growth or attrition to absorb those spots and start hiring off the street again.

I'm thinking those furloughed from ASA might want to look for jobs in other places. It looks like it'll still be a rough going for you guys, sorry
Although it could always be worse, you could be Comair

USMC3197

You need to take into account the pilots that are on LOA (MED/MIL), there is about 65+ of them. Also staffing has to do with [B]BLOCK HOURS[B] more then how many A/Cs you have. You can have all the planes in the world and little blocks hrs and only need a hand full of pilots.

Av8trix

I don't have access to a lot of the ASA website anymore, since the F'd folks had their access revoked a month or two back, but from what I can tell, it actually looks like between 1370-1400 actual active line pilots, putting it nearer 4.5 crew/aircraft. (my count for active pilots is based solely on number of awarded lines) I wish I had access to total block hour information.




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PSACFI

USMC3197 and Av8trix, thanks for correcting my erroneous numbers and thought process. If it is truly as low as 1400 pilots, furloughing another 200+ wouldn't make sense unless the utilization of aircraft goes down a lot. I doubt ASA would want such inefficient use, but I guess it's all up to DL and UA.

Can any active ASA pilot provide the total number of active pilots and the total number of block hours? Any news on that Vietnam thing?

If they were going to recall some of you for the summer I would guess they'd be looking at doing it pretty soon. If they don't recall by the summer it would probably be another year before recalls considering how slow the fall and winter is for airlines.

Gunga Galunga

tough pill to swallow but for anyone near the bottom of the list, this is probably your best bet

USMC3197

I dunno.... me and many other are stuck is such a bad spot... too much time for a small 135 outfit to pick us up because they know/think we will leave sooner then they'd like, no reputable regionals hiring and no CFI jobs open. A few 135 cargo places I talked to didn't like the fact that I had so much multi time because that is what they hold over the pilots head to keep them around. At the end of the day... waiting for recall and just going back to school and doing other kinds of work to survive seems to be the only choice. Some of us went to sell cars, other went to work in food service, some got their old CFI jobs back and other went back to school. Few lucky ones found better aviation jobs and moved on. Oh and a few have gone to military, ooh-rah. My butt is too old and fat to go back to military... otherwise i'd be gone already. I have to just hope that ASA knows what they are doing each time they talk "overstaff" and "furlough". They went all these years with never furloughing pilots and now it seems like it's a easy trigger to pull with all this talk about overstaffing. They cried 200 overstaffed before we got furloughed... now they went 2 rounds of furloughs, some attrition, red arrow days everywhere and gained a UAL contract and they still cry 200 overstaffed. I understand the 6 CRJ200s left but still... from what I am told from the guys at IAD, the 14 200s there are flying more block hrs then it did for DL. That HAS TO MAKE UP for some of the flying for the 6 200s left. Is 200 just a number they like to cry out? HECK... if that is the case then ASA was 400 - 500 overstaffed before round 1 hmm.... that would mean pretty much 50% of the F.O.'s Yet there are line holders hired in mid 2007. This is why I call BS on the overstaff rumor. I do think ASA MAYBE properly staffed as of now.. but no where close to overstaffed.

String682

Talk about rumors swinging 180 out, this morning on my way out to the plane, I over heard that plans are being made acquire one of Mesa's hangar's and their also working a deal to also acquire large portion of their aircraft, along with bringing back all the furloughs, provided this deal goes through. The was talk was in the tone of this happening very soon.

dba74

I would wager that if this happens it would be the 700/900 series since ASA already has too many 200's