Quote:
Originally Posted by Excargodog
In the military if you can’t meet training expectations you meet a flying evaluation board - possibly even lose your wings altogether. It’s not that they don’t want you to succeed, but resources are finite. They can’t keep pumping flight hours into you to the detriment of others who are more capable. It isn’t punishment, it isn’t cruelty. It’s just math
None of which is relevant here.
In the military you don't make money for the unit. You consume it. An civil F/O who doesn't upgrade is still an asset. The airline will always need F/O's. That need will not diminish. An F/O who isn't going to become a captain doesn't cost the company more; perhaps compared to a new hire, with time and longevity, the senior F/O will cost more than the new hire, but that too, is irrelevant. The senior F/O still costs less than a captain of equal seniority or longevity; both fill vital roles, and the pay structure is meted out accordingly.
In the airline structure, the F/O will undergo the same training every period, be it ongoing, or with recurrent and proficiency training, regardless; his continuing as an F/O doesn't increase the training cost to the airline. If the airline gets rid of him however, it does increase its training costs substantially; both the recruitment, hire, and training of a replacement, and the extended period to fill that lost seat...which can be eight months in some places due to the backlog in the training program. Far less expensive to keep the F/O who doesn't upgrade, yet continues to do his job.
It's not a combat unit. You're not sending the F/O to war. Whether the F/O isn't ready to be a captain, or doesn't want to be a captain, that FACT doesn't detract from the companies operation, nor does it increase their costs. The airline isn't the military. The airline produces the revenue that allows the military to operate. Your commentary wasn't facts, and calling them such doesn't make it so. Your statement was incorrect, and your response is more so, and irrelevant.
You posited the interrogative, "
If a thousand hours isn’t enough time for them to get ready for upgrade, perhaps they are in the wrong business?" and called it a "fact." It is not.
You opined, "But seriously, with the majors hiring away CAs at the current rate, eligible people NEED to upgrade. Otherwise they are just soaking up SIC hours other FOs need to upgrade." It is neither "fact" that eligible people need to upgrade, nor "fact" that a first officer who does not upgrade is some how diminishing another employee. These may be your opinion, but are hardly "facts." A new hire does not have a right to the hours flown by a more senior F/O, nor does he have a right to upgrade; it is a privilege accorded those who are able, and who choose to do so. Every operator has those who cannot upgrade, and not everyone is ready at the same time. That is a fact. A F/O who is not ready to upgrade should not accept an upgrade, even if "junior manned" or called to do it without his or her application, and whether he continues to fly as an F/O or not, he is not stealing or "soaking" hours from others. He's working. Get over it.
You stated, "Nobody can fly with just two FOs in the cockpit. If there isn’t a CA in the cockpit, the plane just sits there." as if this has anything to do with the price of tea in china. An airplane can't fly without fuel in the tanks. Or funding. Or nitrogen in the tires, and so on, and so on. So what? Many cockpits fly with more than one F/O on the crew; a single captain and three F/O's, for example, for long distance flying. An F/O who does not upgrade, or chooses to upgrade later, or who is not ready, does not make "two F/O's in the cockpit. That F/O will be assigned F/O duties, as always. Nothing has changed. The company will have ample who wish to upgrade. Some will try and not be ready. Others may be ready but lack the experience, and will get it, but regardless, a captain will fill the captain slot. A F/O will fill the F/O slot. The company will not put two F/O's on board with no captain, obviously; it's a stupid, ridiculous assertion or analogy, or statement to make, but thank you, Major Obvious.
You stated, "And the US is running out of people qualified and willing to be DECs." and you call this a "fact." This is also untrue. The closest that might be said would be that there are fewer who are qualified, who are willing to work for a regional airline under regional wage and working conditions. This doesn't mean that there is a shortage of those who could, but rather it means that the airlines who might offer those direct-entry captain positions lack the ability to attract and retain those qualified to be direct entry captains. The regional world is not, and always has been, an entry level world.
You might as well opine that the "lifers" who sit at the top of the seniority list and never leave their entry level operation, are at fault for "soaking up" flying time that junior captains might get, or for operating in their position at a higher wage, and might even suggest they should move on and leave the regional seat for other up-and-comers. Neither the senior captain who remains, nor the senior F/O who upgrades, is in the wrong: both are performing a job they were hired to do. Whether the captain entered directly or worked his way into that seat is largely irrelevant; he's doing his job. The F/O is doing his job. You see the common thread, or theme? The notion that someone needs to get out of the way to make room for the curtain climbers that follow is like the idiocy that surrounds the age 60/65/67 arguments and when the drivel is filtered, is enunciated quite clearly as the voice of entitlement, "get out of my way old man, I want your job." The problem is that the up-and-comer isn't entitled to the senior F/O's job, or the captain's job.
You stated, "If you can’t grow your own CAs the organization can only contract." and call this too, fact, yet it is neither true, nor fact (both concepts not necessarily synonymous or mutually exclusive). There are organizations that do little upgrading and don't contract, but that's largely irrelevant in the setting of this talk. Airlines have amble curtain climbers who would love to upgrade. The training pipeline at nearly every level in the industry is backed up, with simulators running at capacity, line check airmen stretched thin, OE and consolidation going gangbusters, etc, and it's not exclusive to regionals, ACMI, majors, or even legacy carriers. Coming from the pandemic era and a change in tempo that's left every training department reeling, with reduced entry level training through reduced operations globally, the flux vs. demand will take some time to iron out. The calls of falling skies and the chicken-little impersonators doing their best to stir the masses with their school-girl screaming about shortages and needs to upgrade and lack of available candidates are echoes of the lies of Kit Darby, which just don't seem to die.
Over recent years, I've encountered two F/O's who couldn't read latitude or longitude, nor find it on a chart, some who who couldn't recognize other aircraft types, a captain who (I kid not) believed that Part 135 applied to him (widebody, international), and a host of other appalling dearths of understanding, none of whom were confined to even entry level jobs. To suggest that a new first officer in his first job, with one thousand hours of flight time in the right seat, is automatically prepared for upgrade, is utterly ridiculous, every bit as much as suggesting his failure to upgrade at a thousand hours in the right seat is somehow a detriment to the company or to junior first officers. No, your comments are not fact; they are opinion, but not necessarily correct opinion.