welcome to the airlines. This is just the first of many times you won’t be happy. Every time you get furloughed, it gets harder to come back with a smile

CommutAir
 

If you are leaving and looking for options, consider CommutAir. PM if you want info.

I don’t remember them furloughing classes even when they lost the American flying. An event which which has been erased from Wikipedia.

Any of you want to come to gojet and split the referral, PM

Interesting times. I've second-hand heard of at least one brand new guy with only a couple hundred hours 121 getting an LCC interview in the last week. I've also personally talked to several FOs with more than 500 hours that aren't planning to upgrade and are putting together apps for LCCs or ACMIs. I'd have expected an announcement that TSH management had upped the bonus for DECs and/or were allowing CA upgrades to keep their new hire bonuses - which they've done on a case by case basis in the past. Several of those high time FOs implied and one outright said it'd be a harder choice if they were able to keep their bonuses after they upgrade. Of course this all stuff with canx classes seems to have come to a head very quickly, so that may still be coming. Hopefully they do that - I'm reasonably happy here and would like to stay put until I get an offer to go to the career destination.

But so far silence, other than a quick memo addressing what's already happened. One could say that it appears that TSH is shifting human capital to GoJet. But I'm of the persuasion that they're just trying to stop the bleeding - if this is all related to CA's getting sponged off faster than they can be made, that's a problem that should be coming to GoJet in short order, too, and pretty much any US regional that doesn't have a robust and desirable career path program with AA, UA, or DAL. I can't imagine the mighty 145 type is much more sought after than CL-65 or that there's any sort of fundamental difference between GoJet and TSA pilots that's exacerbated all this *only* for TSA. And while canx new hire classes solves an immediate problem with overstaffing of FOs and seeing them leave for ACMIs and LCCs since they aren't flying, it creates an existential threat to the airline down the road with "oh crap, no one has 1000hrs 121 for upgrade".

Maybe rickair7777 will bless us with his prognostications, but I'm getting the feeling this time is different just because we've never seen labor supply and demand so far out of whack in this direction.

This is absolutely correct. A year from now the same group of geniuses will be scratching their heads as to why their is a shortage of F/O’s to fly their airplanes.

Bonus Repayment
 

Does anyone know where this wording is in the onboarding documents? I can't remember seeing it, but I'm assuming that it is in there somewhere regarding if/how/when one repays this bonus $$ if they used it upfront for transition training.

To me it’s amazing what a group of idiots can do to an airline. The senior management at TSA is stuck in the past. By all appearances it would seem that they have not made any well thought out moves to adapt to the current market. As a former TSA pilot I’ll chip in my $.02.

When TSA has KS, they had major growth, great morale, and direction. Unfortunately we had lost him to better opportunities. Maybe it was because his higher ups were problematic, maybe he simply found something better. Either way, he left. Wasn’t long before things began to unravel. For instance, junior manning, contract violations, straight up lies from scheduling. Inhuman treatment of not just the pilots but FAs and MX (yes MX wasn’t directly under KS but it shows what senior leadership is valuing). So guess what happened, lots of pilots leaving. Mostly FOs at the time if I recall correctly. Major shortages on FOs and more junior manning. A real vicious cycle.

Now it appears as though all the CAs have pulled chute, myself included. So what lessons can we draw. First I believe that TSA needs a KS type person in senior leadership. Basically someone to tell the brass to go eff themselves when appropriate. This also shows that TSA does not have a high caliber person at the helm. This is critical. The senior leadership has only $$$$ in focus. They have absolutely no desire to run a company. Just to set it and forget it. That does not work now.

I sucks to see what is becoming of TSA. There really are some A+ crew members there. I so really hope they find their parachute that works for them and their families.

I think that TSA is just sort of the canary in the coal mine. Maybe managed just a little more poorly than some of the others, but EVERYONE at the regional level is starting to bleed CAs and even senior FOs to the majors, and many of the ones that go first are the training cadre. This is something that is going to have to be ACTIVELY managed by someone with a little foresight and knowledge of queuing theory, otherwise you are going to wind up with CA/FO mismatches even if your total numbers hold up. And this is an issue that is not even amenable to just throwing money at it, not if seniority is going to be honored.

And this is going to become more - not less - of a problem for the next five years or so. Those regionals who don’t manage it well are going under.

any precedent?
 

I am still 700hrs short of ATP mins, and I know very little about the airlines.

Anybody with knowledge see any similarities here between TSA and Great Lakes?

Great Lakes blamed the pilot shortage, but I think the real story was pi$$ poor management led every FO and CA to be actively looking for better jobs.

I ask because Go Jet and TSA fit my 2 to 3 year plan for personal / family reasons.