Just because it ticked down by about 10 pilots doesn’t mean attrition is gone.

 

Exactly.. American went from 90/class to 45, united went from 70 to 35. And us now above 40 a week again.

Not sure about delta.

This all because they suddenly put more people in the doors than they could train because of some very big vacancy bids post COVID created a massive amount of stress on their training centers. Rest assured they can do 70 or 90 a week and will. Attrition will not stop.

My latest DH FO was the last person standing from his newhire class. And they hadn't reached a year yet.

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It’s exactly the reasons we got our last contract. We had to start hiring lower time pilots and had a ton of training washouts. They added a sim session and that helped a little then XJT closed its atl base and we got an influx of experienced pilots but it was all temporary. After a bit the low timers got hired again and the washout rate ticked up and they were forced to the table to keep the growth plan on track. This isn’t different, it’s worse

 

the problem is we don't have a training program. we have a testing program. everyone loves to defend it, but the training here is absolutely abysmal. I have 0 training failures in my entire career, including here so it's not like I'm complaining because I failed or struggled. I didn't. but our training is absolutely abysmal and to increase sim sessions because "we hired lower time pilots" is a big telltale sign. If regionals can train a guy to fly an RJ, we should have no issues training people to fly this plane. for all intents in purposes the bus is easy as F.

but anyway, what's happening now is absolutely going to blow their socks off compared to what happened in 2015,2016 2017 and 2018. I am literally flying with nobody who plans on staying. NONE. It is very very reminiscent to my last year at SkyWest.

 

So you agree that attrition adds to leverage

 

A very real problem now is the attrition in management. no matter if NK becomes B6 or F9, most of management will not be coming along for the ride. That means most of them are fine tuning their own résumés and getting ready to make the leap themselves. It is not an atmosphere much conducive to fixing problems at NK because they too have an ‘on my way out’ mindset. Why negotiate a CBA? It’ll just be wasted effort, because a JCBA will still be required anyway. Besides, it might not be what whoever eventually owns the place wants for the starting position for the JCBA. More better to just take the golden parachute and go somewhere else rather than dealing with the messiness of the transfer.

The ones at greatest risk of getting screwed now are the senior guys with the most time invested in NK. For most FOs, they can hop to a legacy and break even financially on the switch and be right back to the same relative seniority in 2-3 years. For the senior guys, they’ll lose more and take longer to make it up.

 

We don’t disagree on the negotiating a CBA before a JCBA. Of course that’s not going to happen. You carry the attrition leverage into the JCBA w the new management. In the mean time the dumpster fire will continue but we aren’t going out of business. This place has been this way since I started here. Nothing new

 

But if you lose 30 a month in May, June and July where will the operation be by then? Anybody hired today will not be done with training/OE until late summer at the earliest, so have they hired enough already to account for the 100 ish pilots that will leave in the coming summer. Having enough to cover April is one thing, but the summer schedule is a whole nother story

 

The true dumpster fire will come when they have zero upgrades for July followed by that massive displacement in august…..

 

They cut the schedule and will likely continue the cuts.