Coneydog

We're supposed to keep taking deliveries of the XR's (if we can staff them), so they should all being going to Denver....hopefully soon. That memo from ALPA just stated that Commutair's 145's have nothing to do with the aircraft we're supposed to get, so I guess that's promising.

Planedrive

I have been at TSA about one year and I am trying to figure out why we can't grow. Every month the standing bid comes out and it has been between 500-530 since I was hired. Our contract seems pretty good in terms of regionals. I hear skywest is running classes of 100+, Republic, and PSA are filling classes as well. Is it that our recruiting department is that poor? Is it because we fly 50 seat jets? Our classes seem to be between 5-10 per month. Why is skywest getting 100 plus and we can only get 5 people per month?

BobJenkins

Base location, size of company, CFCQ program, advertising 1250 hours TT as a requirement. These are some of the things that caused me not to consider them. But I am sure others have their own reasons.

Riverside

TSA is not a well known company like Skywest or Republic. 8 years ago when I started flight training, I used to get Sporty's magazines. I always heard about Xjt, Comair, Skywest, and Republic.

Also now these days younger crowd equals technology driven. We seen a younger crowd chase the shiny airplanes, instead of older airplanes better contract.

minimwage4

Not everyone looks at short upgrades. They look at the company too. Where would you rather be stuck at? Tsa or Skywest? Also besides short upgrades, Tsa doesn't offer a whole lot. They need to look at 50+ seaters now that the MRJ has been delayed by another 3 years.

waker92

I just finished up all my interviews and ended with one at TSA. The environment seemed good, and all the people I talked to (including line pilots in the terminal) seemed to be happy with their work environment. Saying there is much flying to be had, and that movement should still happen.

Provided this is true; with the problem to staff classes, how drastically could this delay my movement at the company as well as the stability?

TSA is my first choice, (over envoy and compass) as I don't have "shiny jet syndrome" and am drawn to the hiring for both growth and attrition. I am wondering if anyone thinks that I am missing something here regarding TSA's future.

Thanks!

blackbox348

As far as the size of the company, recruiting efforts really aren't that bad...I've chosen to look at it as a percentage. When looking at TSA it is important to note that we are a relatively small company. The new contract is good, but as always and not unlike anywhere else there is always room for improvement. Back to recruiting, lately the company is averaging around 20 new hires per month. Yeah we're not at the 80-100 Skywest is getting, but we're also 1/10 the size. 20/500 pilots versus 100/4500. Now look at this as a percentage of the pilot group, each month we're hiring roughly 4% of our group and Skywest is a little above 2% of the pilot group. Quite honestly TSA could never handle the burden of 50+ pilots/month with the current volume of instructors, sim availability, check airmen etc. looking over our master seniority list and new hires, we are losing pilots to attrition, for each 20 that we get on the bottom (new hires) we are losing 10 from the top.

Things to come...the MEC is currently negotiating PBS with management. Things to look for in this would be a higher first year pay (yes management knows they need to raise it yet again to keep recruiting, and probably don't want to scrap all the "highest first year pay" propaganda), commuter hotels, and modest raises across the board. The last contract had significant improvements on the low end for new hires, but not much for people towards the top of the seniority list. Thus PBS is the last bargaining chip for everyone else.

Overall TSA is a good place to be right now, upgrade times are low. We have one of the best contracts in the regional industry, and management knows what needs to be done to keep the hiring trends and moral up. That being said, by no means is it perfect and like EVERY other regional there are things that could definitely be improved upon.

minimwage4

So probably 2019 for us. I heard that management were going to drop the mrj if it got delayed again. 2019 is a long ways away.

KCaviator

Any idea/rumors of what the increase in pay would be?

FoxHeader

So what would be the contract highlights that you consider that make TSA's contract one of the best in the Regional industry? (Honest question, not trying to start a fight on "my regional is better than yours")