Line pilots to be "pretend" students for TK
 

This message just popped up under CCS.

So, I don't remember an LOA or MOU regarding the usage of line pilots to act as pretend students for new instructors. This is a bad precedence to set when TK guys are training "current and qualified" guys already in the seat. This is the kind of stuff that has repercussions during contract negotiations. I don't have all the info, but it seems like a trial balloon of some sort.

My guess is this was just floated out there with 3 days for volunteers to **** off ALPA.

It also mentions the company will give preferential treatment based on where pilots are based, which we assume will either be from TK or from bases that have excess staffing. Wouldn't seniority be the gold standard for something like this?

Seems to me this probably wasn't run through our Union.

Why wouldn't the company merely hire some much lower wage pilots to "actually" go through training? We're not talking about an extra 100 or 200, its a few handfuls for each fleet. This is manpower negative and not covered under the UPA. I hope the union crushes this or gets them to bargain for it in an LOA.

PDR sent...

Looks like an opportunity for someone who is JR and lives in Den but can’t yet hold it to get a month off from commuting. Don’t see the harm in a good deal for someone.

The harm isn't the good deal. It's the trial balloon of who gets a good deal which isn't based on an interview or seniority. How would you feel if they did other TDYs this way?

I've been pretending for over 25 years. ;)

I do agree the Union should be involved.

I agree for the 737 and 756......but you can’t put new hires on the 787 and 777.

We don't need pretend students. We need real students with real instructors with real evaluators helping the new instructors.

Maybe this is another kind of trial....Maybe it's another way for them to get more zero time bonanza pilots in the airline. I think that's really what's going on. Now, they may not be telling us this, because if they did, that would really tick off ALPA, but we can't be hood-winked by this sort of silliness.

They didn't seem to have a need to do this in years past when they brought on new instructors....Ask your self...what's new, what's different? The difference to me is the mindset of flight ops. They have no problem bringing in marginally and underqualified peeps. Now, they are going to get ALPA dues paying pilots to help negotiate the legs out from under us by giving up this so-called good deal to a select few.

No ALPA pilots should participate in this unless blessed, approved and authorized by our union. The company needs to come to ALPA and spell it out. Goals, objectives, reasons-rationale, etc. We've been training pilots for a long time. What's so special now that we need "pretend students.?"

I don’t think it is “special” at all. The modest flow of new hires is about to slow to a trickle until fall. Meanwhile, new hires going through training are suffering from lack of experienced PIs as well as lack of PIs in general. I’ve seen a steady stream of reports of busted rides followed by extended limbo while waiting for a PI and redo. Some of the busts have been doled out to FOs only, while letting paired upgrading CAs move on. New PIs need seasoning somehow, and I suppose this is the COs best idea for handling it. I’ll sit back and let my union figure out how to respond.

It's cheaper to pay 50 pilots for one month than hire 50 pilots and have them sit around for 6 months. At least I'm sure that's what management thinks. When the pilot well goes dry this summer they will probably wish they had hired pilots....

How is it we are running low on flight instructors at TK?

If we are losing our instructors, then simply replacing the ones we are losing is not the answer. We need to keep our good instructor cadre.

Address the issues resulting in the loss (and therefore need) for instructors.

Our airline isn't going through rapid expansion. It's more of a status quo thing. We should be able to attain and maintain a reasonable level of experience (quality) at TK without the urgent need to re-load and re-group.

I think ALPA needs to stay on top of what's going on at TK. If quality and quantity are issues, ALPA needs to engage with management to insure that the process and the pipeline are meeting expectations.

Been doing this a long time. That's the first time I've ever seen such a weird memo.

They better get this training thing figured out, because when the real pilot shortage hits they won't have time to reinvent the wheel. This summer is going to be a hoot.

Yep never seen this kind of thing before, but you all realize the LOA over the moving TK from IAH is about to run out. Many of the instructors and evaluators are leaving and they have a new training footprint “fixing” all the complaints we line pilots have made.

Personally getting paid 90 hours to practice train and not commute isn’t worth the loss of days off. But a reserve commuter may see it another way. Now should they have bid it or this volunteer thing? Haven’t heard a thing from ALPA and I guarantee you all our Training Comm knew about it before yesterday.