Not exactly slitting their own throat as we're all still here, most of that management included. They also later admitted was a mistake, and one I doubt we'll see again.

Letting pay raises expire would make our DEC mess look like a picnic.

When will they resume hiring DEC's?

Hopefully never. It completely stalled the momentum we had with hiring at the time, stopped delivery of acft, and ultimately cost a good bit of AA's money.

Likely wont happen. Prior 121 guys might be able to score an upgrade a little early (12-18 months) but I wouldnt count on DEC's again. Well, at least not any time soon.

If the trend of the last few captain awards continues...by the end of July any prior 121 FO will be able to upgrade as soon as they finish IOE.

I could be wrong but I don't attribute a direct cause/effect relationship between these two while they did occur simultaneously. At the time (summer 2015) there was a significant backlog in FO training; it was taking anywhere from 6-8 months to complete training through IOE and guys were being paid to sit at home between phases waiting for the next phase. Many had to attend refresher courses prior to taking orals and it was a mess. PSA decided to eliminate the backlog and hire DECs seemingly at the same time. The predominance of hiring was DECs but there were a few FOs that snuck in there. We still weren't filling classes that could have been tapped off with FOs but the backlog would have remained. By the time the backlog had cleared and they wanted to start hiring again the environment had changed and other regionals (SkyWest and Republic come to mind) were paying significantly more than PSA. It took another 6 months or so for the pay scale adjustments to become a reality which seems to have turned things around. That's just my interpretation of reality... hopefully my recollection of history matches true reality.

Ultimately, they were stuck in a no win situation because they hadn't appropriately or were unable to appropriately man the airline for the growth. AND... here they are again, approaching critical mass on CAs. Are they going to wait and be reactive again, or fix it now???

They're fixing it by changing the way they count "active captains", thereby keeping the flow from increasing, as was contractually agreed to.

Wa are still much better than 90% of other options for people, and 100% if the live in the South East.

There are some bad things, but the good far outweighs the bad.

Envoy has a southeast base in MIA.
Endeavor has a southeast base in ATL.
PSA has a southeast base in CLT.

Why is PSA 100% better than Envoy and Endeavor for people living in the southeast? If I lived in the southeast and wanted a short commute, I would have three good choices. Crew bases aside, Endeavor, Envoy and PSA are very similar is many ways.

MIA is 1:50 from ATL, ORD is 1:52. I'm not sure I would call MIA the southeast. I know it is 'south' and 'east', but it's still pretty far from where most would be commuting. Endeavor's ATL base would be great for ASA guys...if they can hold it.