bradthepilot

Well, hmm. I'd be commuting from MSP or RST, which for ORD is about as easy as commuting gets I'd guess. MKE is a bit tougher, but it's still a one leg commute out of MSP. I'm anticipating a night before/night after/both, but it is what it is. The schedule reliability thing is a concern, for sure, but I'm kind of ok with it as a way to get more experience in a timely manner.

I'd be more concerned about the longer term impact of not being able to staff flights on the relationship between AWAC and UA. Not knowing anything about how such things work, I'd imagine there's penalties for not being able to fulfill a commitment and if that means that UA could walk away from AWAC prior to the end of the 5 year agreement.

FlyPKP

That's everyone's concern as it should be as well for a new hire. This place is a gamble right now. Management maintains there's no trouble though, so it's hard to say for sure if the TA will do what's right and attempt to course correct with some raises, or if they'll maintain the status quo of, we don't have any money to give, and we continue to lose flying to airlines that can staff.

lukeh99

If anything they will just reduce our block hours to something we can handle.

Soxfan1

This seems more likely to me as well. United won’t cut off their nose to spite their face. AWA can’t give us 65 a/c? Fine we will still take 50. Most UAX carriers are having some level of staffing issues, or did, or will. Could any take on 65 a/c worth of flying right now? I don’t see it. Mesa is struggling on the Ejet side and CommutAir is just now starting grow very slowly. With TSA and ExpressJet loosing AA they may have some room but they will loose pilots in the process as those AA bases close. So a maybe there. Rebublic and GoJet do not fly 50 seaters. Skywest? They already have growth plans on a few CPAs so adding even more right now maybe a bridge too far.

So even if UA wanted to, they couldn’t.

The two best things that could happen to AWA right now to attract newbies AND retain current pilots would be a very good to great TA and a new base that will help and not hurt recruitment. Denver would be a great choice. Shrink MKE in half, pull down some lines from ORD, grow IAD by 20% to help keep our current east coasters happy. DEN would have a few very senior on top of the CA list but like MKE, would fall off after that.

But us loosing the contract is not even remotely a concern of mine right now.

Greensideup

You’ll never upgrade in 18 months. About 60 people bypassed upgrade , and they postponed the next upgrade class 3 months... for staffing reasons.

idlethrust

If you are a senior fo or lineholder why upgrade ? Life at aw as a reserve cpt is horrible as well
I don’t blame them for bypassing.
Cancel upgrades because you don’t have enough fo’s ? Yet you need upgrades because you don’t have enough captains??
Dammed if they do and dammed if they don’t lol

stroopwaffle

Cant get FO's through training fast enough because of lack of instructors, moreso when students leave the footprint.

Cant get FO's through training. (lol)

Cant make instructors from current line pilots because they need to fly the line.

Cant upgrade awarded FO's because they need the FO's on the line.

Cant send people to the UA CPP because we will not be overstaffed anytime soon.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯


Going into summertime with this, and block hours seem to be increasing for all domiciles.

donkeyjockey

Im now getting a.m. and p.m. jr man calls on my days off.


same for anyone else????

FlyPKP

I believe they call that Operational Excellence

Day4mx

No operational excellence is putting up tv's with ontime performance in our absolute disgrace of a crewroom.