6ix9ineYearFlow

I recently received CJO from Atlas/Southern on a widebody jet.

Question: I'm currently a first officer in the bottom half of seniority at an American Airlines wholly-owned regional. Is a move to Atlas/Southern a poor decision (i.e. does it make sense to 'wait it out' at my regional)?

Some of my considerations:
(1) I don't have TPIC time yet, but I'm going to stagnate as an FO for at least a year (if not much, much longer) at my regional.
(2) My bet is that the economy does not have a significant recovery by this fall and there will be lots of furloughs at the mainlines and regionals.
(3) I'm not confident about the future of my regional given it's fate is completely entwined with AAG. American is so far in debt, coupled with what is shaping up to be a significantly worse situation than the previous two downturns, I'm hedging AAG is heading for - at best - Ch. 11 in the next couple years. Significant pay cuts, potential for furlough, and my regional carrier even being sold off / liquidated all seem within the realm of possibilities.
(4) I don't care about flow-through and have no intention of flowing to AA.
(5) I'm well-acquainted with the pros and cons of working for Atlas/Southern. I have a family and want job security; it mainly burns me to think I was so close to upgrading at my regional prior to COVID.

Voski

Just my $0.02, but I think it could be a good decision - particularly if you're on the Southern side. Not sure how upgrades are going to be affected given a lot of movement stopping in the industry, Atlas and Southern seniority lists merging (maybe some sort of fences being implemented, etc), but you could feasibly upgrade to the 737 fairly quickly in the meantime.

You can only really go off what you know today. Right now, American Airlines' future looks grim. Hindsight is 20/20, but I think you're smart being proactive about you and your family's future. As a regional FO and your carrier cut pay by 30%, would your family get by?

Liketoflyjets

Fortune favors the bold....there are a couple seats left and the music is still playing.....I have multiple CJO's even in this climate. You will NOT get a job in a couple months.....those who jump ship now are guaranteed the jobs - those who wait are guaranteed to go to walmart. Look at the two worst case scenarios - (1) you jump ship, and your airline folds, and you relish your employment at the new carrier. (2) You jump ship, and miracle or miracles, your airline survives, and you still relish your employment at the new carrier.

FYI without TPIC i have heard you may become 'trapped' in the right seat for a long time at atlas/southern

Foxtrot

I can't tell you what to do, but can give my experience/opinion. I would rather be at Atlas than at a regional, especially now. I've been here for 3 years and I really enjoy the job! Crews are great, destinations are everywhere, and the company is doing well. Just got off a company call where we are being told that upgrades will continue throughout the year. It seems like you know the choice you want to make and sometimes there's no way to tell what was a good or bad decision until a while after it's been made. Atlas has been a good decision for me and my family!

FourFans130

Sounds to me like jumping to Atlas/Southern is a wise call. Even if your regional survives just fine, there are two things it will never provide you that significantly boost your resume: Wide-body training/time and diverse international experience. As a professional pilot, those two should not be discounted in the long run of your career.

sigler

There’s a third scenario though. Virus is not a problem a number of months from now, but economic recovery is slow and painful. As passenger airlines get their wide bodies flying again, cargo space becomes a lot more plentiful as overall demand for cargo drops due to the recession. Suddenly, folks in the bottom of the seniority list at cargo carriers are in an uncomfortable position.

That being said, I would still make the move. Even in this hypothetical third scenario your current regional could still fold.

Elevation

Nobody really knows what the future holds. It's entirely possible you'll be here at Atlas or Southern watching your friends flow to American mainline. It's also entirely possible that American could divest itself entirely of one of their WO regionals and you'd be on the street.

I guess I'd just say make the best decision you can now and try not to fret when conditions change tomorrow.

akfrtdwg 57

You can't take anything this management team says as truthful. No matter what anybody says above. JC mentions upgrades to continue thru the year but talking to people from the training department and they are skeptical. If you come here without any TPIC plan on that being the case for the next 6 years. That might sound excessive but if Legacy hiring stays stagnant upgrades will stagnate here as well as we don't really have expansion plans. This is from our Management team in the Quarters Earning call not suspicion. On the crew call questions were asked about available feedstock for conversions and they said they would do a market analysis to see if the airframes were worth it i.e. 777-300ER. It didn't sound like they felt they had a market plan for those airframes. The 738s maybe, but there is a lot of competition for DHL/AMZ for those airframes that can do the job cheaper than us now that I doubt we get to far along in that gauge. That leaves the 767s. Still limited feedstock and aircraft for the foreseeable future seem to be going to ATSG as our Management team squandered potential growth in that airframe a couple years ago. 747-400F feedstock is nothing but eliminated so no expansion on that airframe. In fact Atlas sold off one of our 400F a few weeks ago. So not much room to expand in any direction since our managers poorly positioned the company a couple years ago. We could get the bodies in seats now, but the damage was done and potential customers took note. From poor manning, poor launch times (Mx and Scheduling) we got a crappy rep which started a couple years ago.


Don't bother listening to anyone who will blow smoke up your butt about how I might be full of it or embellishing the situation. Thats the current state of affairs no matter how you shake it. I came here quite a few years ago with a big smile on my face aiming to make this the career gig, but I believed our management team to long. Now I'm in the fight to save the company from them. JC himself has stated to our Union team that the company wants the ability to sell off parts of the company and it won't be as profitable to them if they have to offer job protections. They haven't bothered to defend that position at all. That should tell you something in it of itself.


So you need to ask yourself cause I can't give you the answer. Do you want to be at an airline that has no plans to expand, has no attrition issue right now due to stagnated hiring at Legacies therefore high chances of prolonged right seat flying barely building hours (see the 737 schedules mentioned in numerous other locations ~300hrs a year). Are you willing to come here and risk just being out of another job in a couple years if this company divests a certificate to make a few hundred mil and subsequently furloughs a chunk of the pilot group. So if you do come here be prepared to fight this management team for you job protections. Because they have openly stated they don't want you to have any. Per JC in a crew call a couple weeks ago, they want to negotiate pay rates and retirement before they discuss Scope and his definition of Scope is Job protections. So they want to negotiate pay rates before they negotiate how much job security we have. His words not mine.


Like any career choice, its a gamble. Come on over see for yourself, its up to you not anyone here. I really wouldn't ask anyone here for career advise even me. Thats why I won't give it. But I will tell you my observations over the past years here. More than welcome to PM and I'll give you a break down of how I started Optimistic to Cautiously optimistic to ambivalent to down right p#@$%d off at the situation. Wasn't much of a union person. Still not really, but this company as spit in my face enough to warrant my current animosity towards it. Not Atlas, the Management team in particular.

Elevation

I still consider myself kind of a union guy, but I'm pretty jaded. Us cog-on-a-wheel, nobody special pilots often find ourselves with not two but three or four entities (company, union, prospective union, training department cliques, etc.) trying to sway our minds about things. None of them present unvarnished truth. All of them are using us as commodities in some struggle that seems less and less related to the welfare of the pilots or company as a whole.

Still, I have a job when others don't. I have health care when others don't. We did get a coronavirus MOU. These are tangible truths, and all I really can trust. So it's not all terrible, but you're on your own to find the signals of truth buried in all the noise.

TiredSoul

What you’ve “heard” is absolute BS, they do not upgrade out of sequence if you do not have TPIC.