What’s a realistic flow estimate for a new hire today? Friend was quoted 4-5 years. Sound accurate?

Time to flow depends on
1) how many AA takes
2) how many PSA pilots leave for elsewhere

You can make reasonable assumptions on both, but neither of those numbers is knowable with enough certainty to meaningfully bound time-to-flow.

I have never heard anyone here quote 4-5 years. That is not realistic. 6-7 years is more realistic.

1,700-100 who will retire from PSA = 1,600

If one assumes attrition at 50%, we’re down to 800 who need to flow before a new hire flows.

800/110= about 7.3 years

Attrition is anyone’s guess, and we can only hope we don’t have an economic event that slows hiring....unlikely to run another 7 years without a recession.

Barring a 30%-50% increase in current flow numbers, it’s difficult to imagine a scenario where today’s new hire will flow in 4-5 years.

Barring any unforeseen hiccups, I think 7 years is a reasonable expectation.

The Late 2013 and 2014 hires will see 5-6 year flow times, but after that cohort they will go back up.

Consider that each class of 30 pilots adds 1.5-3 months to the flow, depending on the attrition rate. Classes occur every two weeks, so each month you are not in training is at least 3 months added to your flow time.

As long as the hiring frenzy continues NOW is the best time to start and any self-imposed delay to beginning training is costing you a lot of money.

If AA demands more flows from the WOs (entirely possible) a new hire could potentially see the lead time come back down to the 5-6 year mark.

I'd love to hear about the timeframes for those that went to Mainline before the flow or to other airlines. I'm guessing most were here at least 5 years unless they had prior 121 time.

121 time or prior military fixed wing pilots?

The flow has never been about hiring at American. It’s about staffing the regionals. Flow increases are about atracting new hires to the WO.