Piedmont Airlines News & Rumors
01-16-2020, 06:52 PM
#5074
Line Holder
Joined APC: Jan 2017
Posts: 59
Management says that their options are limited when it comes to trip construction because of AA’s decision to cut the early and the late bank off of Philly a while back plus the old Dash routes. Do you think that they’re off base? Even if we increased min day it doesn’t change the underlying bank availability and leg length limitations. It kinda seems like the big parts of putting efficient trips together are out of their control?
01-16-2020, 06:58 PM
#5075
Line Holder
Joined APC: Jan 2017
Posts: 59
To be fair, even though they had 750ish pilots last year, 100ish were part of the hiring binge, stuck in the training pipeline, so they have more line pilots now than they've ever had. I think Piedmont is finally well staffed, at least for the winter lull, and they really only have to hire, at most, 20 per month to keep up with attrition. But, the training pipeline accumulator is now empty, outside attrition is increasing, all of the regionals are hungry for pilots, and summer will be here before we know it. It could get interesting.
01-17-2020, 05:54 AM
#5076
Banned
Joined APC: Jan 2015
Posts: 177
Management says that their options are limited when it comes to trip construction because of AA’s decision to cut the early and the late bank off of Philly a while back plus the old Dash routes. Do you think that they’re off base? Even if we increased min day it doesn’t change the underlying bank availability and leg length limitations. It kinda seems like the big parts of putting efficient trips together are out of their control?
Envoy flies not only the same jet as PDT, but also a smaller version of it. Think they don't get equally short legs? I wonder if their management calls them ATR routes as an excuse to their pilots
As for the rebanking, the early mainline flights now leave at around 8 rather than 7:30 and, the late mainline flights leave about 9 rather than 10. I'm no Vasu Raja but I don't think you can write up Piedmont's scheduling issues to that alone. If the rebanking in PHL were the issue, why are the CLT guys dealing with the same issues? As far as I know this restructure was never done there (correct me if I'm wrong).
01-17-2020, 07:35 PM
#5077
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Aug 2015
Posts: 203
Envoy flies not only the same jet as PDT, but also a smaller version of it. Think they don't get equally short legs? I wonder if their management calls them ATR routes as an excuse to their pilots
As for the rebanking, the early mainline flights now leave at around 8 rather than 7:30 and, the late mainline flights leave about 9 rather than 10. I'm no Vasu Raja but I don't think you can write up Piedmont's scheduling issues to that alone. If the rebanking in PHL were the issue, why are the CLT guys dealing with the same issues? As far as I know this restructure was never done there (correct me if I'm wrong).
As for the rebanking, the early mainline flights now leave at around 8 rather than 7:30 and, the late mainline flights leave about 9 rather than 10. I'm no Vasu Raja but I don't think you can write up Piedmont's scheduling issues to that alone. If the rebanking in PHL were the issue, why are the CLT guys dealing with the same issues? As far as I know this restructure was never done there (correct me if I'm wrong).
And take another look at a typical day's flying in CLT vs PHL. CLT has flights departing after 11pm at night. PHL shuts down before 10pm. I'm all for improved schedules and more efficient trips, and a lot of improvements can and need to be made. But blaming it all on the company without understanding that we fly the shortest stage lengths in the AA system and fly a jet on dash routes just shows a lack of understanding of the situation. How many flights do we fly out of PHL and CLT that are blocked over two hours? Now how many do you think PSA flies out of PHL and CLT over 2 or even 3 hours? Same with Envoy out of DFW and ORD. The schedule inefficiencies won't be fixed until Piedmont has a larger and more diverse route network. And that likely will not come until you see a jet on property that seats more than 50 passengers.
01-17-2020, 07:53 PM
#5078
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jun 2019
Posts: 303
Take a good look at some of Envoy's flights. Sure they fly some short routes, but they also fly much longer ones. A large amount of them.
And take another look at a typical day's flying in CLT vs PHL. CLT has flights departing after 11pm at night. PHL shuts down before 10pm. I'm all for improved schedules and more efficient trips, and a lot of improvements can and need to be made. But blaming it all on the company without understanding that we fly the shortest stage lengths in the AA system and fly a jet on dash routes just shows a lack of understanding of the situation. How many flights do we fly out of PHL and CLT that are blocked over two hours? Now how many do you think PSA flies out of PHL and CLT over 2 or even 3 hours? Same with Envoy out of DFW and ORD. The schedule inefficiencies won't be fixed until Piedmont has a larger and more diverse route network. And that likely will not come until you see a jet on property that seats more than 50 passengers.
And take another look at a typical day's flying in CLT vs PHL. CLT has flights departing after 11pm at night. PHL shuts down before 10pm. I'm all for improved schedules and more efficient trips, and a lot of improvements can and need to be made. But blaming it all on the company without understanding that we fly the shortest stage lengths in the AA system and fly a jet on dash routes just shows a lack of understanding of the situation. How many flights do we fly out of PHL and CLT that are blocked over two hours? Now how many do you think PSA flies out of PHL and CLT over 2 or even 3 hours? Same with Envoy out of DFW and ORD. The schedule inefficiencies won't be fixed until Piedmont has a larger and more diverse route network. And that likely will not come until you see a jet on property that seats more than 50 passengers.
And before they were Dash routes they were 727, DC9 and 737 routes. Piedmont( the real one) flew a 727 AVL to CLT. ILM was a
737 base and a 727 base as well as I recall. And before that they were YS11 and Martin/Convair 580 routes. There was a Norfolk 727 base. A Roanoke 737 base. A GSO 73 and 727 base. An Atlanta 73 base. Winston Salem was a 737 base. A 737 regularly ran GSO to CLT. RDU CLT. FLO CLT. Many more that you fly now. All short.Look at the original Piedmont route map. It looks identical to yours today in many short hops. This was way before Piedmont began to add longer legs to LA and PHX, SFO. And long before Allegheny became USAir and added similar long legs to PHX, SFO and LAX. USAir pilots were some of the most productive anywhere, flying hard time trips. We either flew 3 four day trips or 4 three day trips and clocked 85 hrs hard time.
USAir flew PHL -AVP, BGM, BUF, SYR and lots more with 737 s.
Piedmont and USAir flew lots of routes similar to yours, and built far more efficient pilot schedules with short stub routes. We just didn't sit around in hotels like you do. High frequency days with lots of legs. I don't get this Dash versus 145 stuff at all. Your company sits you in hotels and has no clue how to schedule you. And PBS doesn't fix it by the way. It gets fixed by a decent duty rig that hits them for sitting you.
Last edited by Cicada; 01-17-2020 at 08:09 PM.
01-18-2020, 04:09 AM
#5079
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jul 2015
Position: DHC-8 CA
Posts: 463
And before they were Dash routes they were 727, DC9 and 737 routes. Piedmont( the real one) flew a 727 AVL to CLT. ILM was a
737 base and a 727 base as well as I recall. And before that they were YS11 and Martin/Convair 580 routes. There was a Norfolk 727 base. A Roanoke 737 base. A GSO 73 and 727 base. An Atlanta 73 base. Winston Salem was a 737 base. A 737 regularly ran GSO to CLT. RDU CLT. FLO CLT. Many more that you fly now. All short.Look at the original Piedmont route map. It looks identical to yours today in many short hops. This was way before Piedmont began to add longer legs to LA and PHX, SFO. And long before Allegheny became USAir and added similar long legs to PHX, SFO and LAX. USAir pilots were some of the most productive anywhere, flying hard time trips. We either flew 3 four day trips or 4 three day trips and clocked 85 hrs hard time.
USAir flew PHL -AVP, BGM, BUF, SYR and lots more with 737 s.
Piedmont and USAir flew lots of routes similar to yours, and built far more efficient pilot schedules with short stub routes. We just didn't sit around in hotels like you do. High frequency days with lots of legs. I don't get this Dash versus 145 stuff at all. Your company sits you in hotels and has no clue how to schedule you. And PBS doesn't fix it by the way. It gets fixed by a decent duty rig that hits them for sitting you.
737 base and a 727 base as well as I recall. And before that they were YS11 and Martin/Convair 580 routes. There was a Norfolk 727 base. A Roanoke 737 base. A GSO 73 and 727 base. An Atlanta 73 base. Winston Salem was a 737 base. A 737 regularly ran GSO to CLT. RDU CLT. FLO CLT. Many more that you fly now. All short.Look at the original Piedmont route map. It looks identical to yours today in many short hops. This was way before Piedmont began to add longer legs to LA and PHX, SFO. And long before Allegheny became USAir and added similar long legs to PHX, SFO and LAX. USAir pilots were some of the most productive anywhere, flying hard time trips. We either flew 3 four day trips or 4 three day trips and clocked 85 hrs hard time.
USAir flew PHL -AVP, BGM, BUF, SYR and lots more with 737 s.
Piedmont and USAir flew lots of routes similar to yours, and built far more efficient pilot schedules with short stub routes. We just didn't sit around in hotels like you do. High frequency days with lots of legs. I don't get this Dash versus 145 stuff at all. Your company sits you in hotels and has no clue how to schedule you. And PBS doesn't fix it by the way. It gets fixed by a decent duty rig that hits them for sitting you.
01-18-2020, 04:13 AM
#5080
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jan 2014
Position: CA
Posts: 309
I flew these same routes at air wisconsin on the CRJ. The difference was a real min day and a trip/ duty rig. A lot of our trips would pay 20-22 hours under the air wisconsin contract. The company can’t use the “dash routes” as an excuse.
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