You know, there were a lot of guys who had their NWA interviews canceled due to the flow at XJ, you know, so they could hand you your job communist style.

Dang man, you make me feel so depressed. Hopefully that $4-5000check I get every two weeks or so cheers me up. It sucks being a loser, sleeping in my own bed everyday, weekends and holidays off, spending time with the family...

Maybe I should start sending some apps out. Take my 12000 hours, 8000 hours of PIC turbine, 3 degrees with a 3.8gpa, no negatives on my record, and my military experience and start competing against you for a job. You wouldn't mind me competing against you for a job would you? Your 4500 hours and 0 pic time? (and why haven't you been hired elsewhere, we've had plenty of pilots leave without PIC time?)

Maybe you ought to be thankful there are a bunch lifers (perhaps thousands of them) that aren't applying for the jobs you want.

I haven't been hired because I suck. ;)

No there weren't. The NWA interview machine was up and running during the brief window where a few dozen XJ pilots flowed to NWA. PM me one pilot who "had their NWA interview cancelled due to the flow at XJ" You claim a lot?

Your perception couldn't be more skewed cencal. I don't know of a single pilot from XJ who got hired/flowed at NWA/DAL who felt entitled to the job. All the flows spend 14+ years at XJ and were perfectly content not going anywhere. Those who flowed were lucky and happened to be in the right place at the right time. Nothing else and none felt entitled.

And yet 2007 XJ hires had jobs at mainline waiting for them. Heck, more senior than that.

108 people. It's one thing to have not allowed the unwashed masses, ie Pinnacle pilots (XJ pilots hate us, because we are stupid?) participate in this flow as a result of the purchase... but to short change every new hire at XJ prior to July 1 2010 (the day that music died) out of their earned slot is not fathomable. If you earned it, so did any XJ new hire. I didn't, because I went to the idiot airline.

As an aside, my buddies tell me that from day 1 in class, they were told how bad everyone at Pinnacle was... And yet, in the other house, we never even talked about any other regional carrier in the course of training.

Back to topic: why is it such a foreign concept that new hires at regionals and FOs in general need to be compensated fairly? I ran the numbers once, but you dismiss it as socialism. I guess I'll just go with the boilerplate agree to disagree, because I don't see it that way. Even DALPA gets a fixed dollar amount from DAL, that the folks in charge of the union split up into various sections of the contract. As far as responsibility in the cockpit, CRM would say that both crewmembers are equally responsible for the outcome. Of course one person has to make the final decision, and the FO shouldn't question the decision unless he or she feels they are about to die or violate a reg or SOP. Dismissing the right seat responsibility strikes me as you assuming all your FOs are idiots who warm the seat next to you. I'm sure that you've flown with CAs at the regional level you scratch your head at...

Let's revisit this:
top scale FO vs 4 year CA (none of those at Endeavor anyway):: $39 FO, $69 CA (56.5%)

top scale FO vs top scale CA $39 FO, $87 CA (44.8%)

Both numbers are too low, but are 7 year FOs the liability to CAs that wet-commercials off the street are? Hardly....

If they truly want to encourage up-and-out, FO scale should be increased. If the the top scale FO became 12 years, at current top vs 4 %, that's $49.16....

Why did so many people, at 2011 JCBA rates, and pre-bankruptcy XJ rates, want to stay?

The regional model does not work with folks staying... Bottom line, they HAVE to move on. How do you make it happen?

I don't have the answers, but treating the guys stuck waiting to upgrade better might be a start. Encourage people to move on. Re-think pay scales at the regional level without knee-jerk reactions of "it's different, so it's socialist". Lastly, regional FOs are just as capable as the CAs, if not more. If you've been paying attention, many current 7+ year FOs WERE CAs....

Your FO pay rates are very close to Compass FO pay rates. I don't hear anyone at Compass complaining about it. I think your complaint is that you are stuck in the right seat. If there were 2-3 year upgrades happening at Endeavor that I doubt anyone would be complaining about FO pay. It's always been a seniority based system. There is no precedent to retool pay scales based upon time to upgrade. If someone wants to be a regional lifer than that is their prerogative. No one owes you their left seat. Are you really mad about the pay or the fact that you can't get into the right seat? I doubt you would be complaining about FO pay if you were a Captain.

Back to back posts that illustrate my point perfectly in this poll. The regional pilot group is split on this issue.

I think you meant left seat :P

But no, I'm not mad about not getting into the seat. There were a lot of closed door discussions and one Bloch award, coupled with a bankruptcy, that made left seat 9E an impossible venture. My buddies who are protected on the 900, and are senior, can get CA at a more junior number than I can, waiting for a 200 slot, since that's all I can get.

Was Compass designed with moving on in mind? Tha could explain the short upgrade. For a year, you could retire very richly here at Endeavor. Only when our pay got slashed in the fire sale did the top start gradually moving. Not all of them have finished their AirlineApps DAL app yet either.

The problem with regional lifers is they kill their companies with their extremely top heavy pay. Furloughing / losing planes doesn't help... It only gets rid of the guy making $25-$39 per hour...

I guess it doesn't really matter any more though, Endeavor's fate is sealed.

What happened to all this talk of CAs having more skin in the game? Seems like the fact that CAs are sitting right seat making $39 an hour wasn't lost on you...

How many people jumped the flow? EC was the only one, but he had someone in HR overlook he was an XJ pilot. All of the former employees/interns/FTIs of NWA, including myself, who had guaranteed interviews, were shot down due to the flow. NWA did not want to take any more than they absolutely had to from XJ, and it had always been that way.