PDTpilotXX

5/11 new hires have failed out of the class that is currently in the school house, they will be short FO's if the upgrade the 4 as they had planned.

l1011

***...

I wonder what the piedmont definition of shortly is. Hopefully next week, i would really like to change bases.

Also according to the latest seniority listing only one person is still listed as in training. Did all but one fail out? Where did you here five from?

piper338

Maybe they are failing out because our forecast staffing levels are lower... could be bad furloughs anyone?

PDTPILOT

With the amount of attrition on the fo side, I don't see furloughs....I'm hoping there was some unseen attrition in bases and they're reconfiguring this bid to reflect that. But I'm not optimistic

l1011

Who knows, I just don't get my hopes up about anything with this place anymore.

Anyone know what happened at the schoolhouse to cause this latest round of failures?

PDT Pirate

The current class that started 2/14 would have recently finished ground school and possibly started in the sim this week. The 5 must have failed out of the ground school. I can't imagine there being 5 failures the first week of sim.

PDTPILOT

I was thinking the same thing. The tests are either really tough or they got offers from other airlines

DashGirl

More writing for the wall really...The LGA shutdown is not going to bode well for this airline. With only the 42 additional slots to DCA nearly all of which are going to 70 and 90 jets according to Scott Kirby on crew news last fall, that would mean that more or less 12 ship lines of flying at PDT will have to be distributed between PHL and CLT. Well, therein lies the problem. Remember, AWAC had a crew base in LGA too and will loose a good amount of flying as well so there "contracted" aircraft are going to get 1st priority on any needed lift at the two hubs.

What does that mean for us? It means there will likely be very little to zero replacement flying for our displaced aircraft. As that would require capacity increases out of PHL and/or CLT and that is not going to happen under the current economics and fuel prices environment. Airways is looking to consolidate flights and run leaner in many markets to strengthen their long term cash position and market stability. That is no secret, DP and SK have been saying this for a while now.

And then there is the potential of an AMR merger..which is a whole other thread..

I suppose the good news is that they will have plenty of operational spares and it would not surprise me if you saw at least 1 100 at each maint base permanently parked and cannibalized for parts.

All in all unless unforeseeable and unlikely positive things happen economically, mainline resolves it's labor issues and USAPA will agree to relaxed scope for the purposes of a PDT refleet Piedmont is pretty much done as an air carrier within 2 to 5 years max. We will either be merged into PSA or Eagle if an AMR merger goes down, or just outright put on the street. I simply cannot see under any circumstances Piedmont continuing on indefinitely as it is today. Labor issues here as well are driving PDT straight into the annals of airlines past. Attrition is still going strong and with other regionals beginning to dump that insulting 1st year pay for livable first year wages I don't think it will be long, especially after the new rest rules go into effect, before the airline has very significant difficulty in operating even a reduced fleet from where we are now due to crew shortages. Mainline's patience in our completion factor will only become more strained as that percentage drops even lower from the already dismal 77% it currently is, or was the last time I checked it (ask dispatch about it, they have those numbers daily.)

Though it's not impossible, a refleet could happen and our future gets a little more security, but that is very far from likely.

Again..the writing is on the wall.

l1011

Who let debbie downer in?

Phuz

Why would airways refleet a regional seniority list with 30 year captains all over it?