word302

Actually FO FO sim pairings are pretty common these days.

Squallrider

Strange considering all crj upgrades and all the 175 deliveries.

word302

Well we're still hiring 70-90 per month. We're not upgrading that many.

Excargodog

Apparently both Horizon and Compass have gotten themselves into a serious CA shortage with CAs and senior FOs going off to the majors in unexpected numbers while the newly hired FOs simply lack the 121 time to upgrade. The almost unprecedented opportunities for advancement appear to have caught a lot of HR and training departments sort of flat-footed. Throwing money at the vacancies with signing bonuses might help newbie recruitment, but it doesn't do as much for retention. Any CA who would turn down an offer from a major for a $10,000-20,000 retention bonus probably ought not to be trusted to calculate a weight & balance. And the same goes for an FO deciding to upgrade to CA in lieu of going to a major, only even more so.

amcnd

Honestly. Will any airline be able to have good “retention”. Most pilots got into this feild to fly for the “Majors”... next 5+ years will be crazy attrition for all airlines.. still pick a regional that if the music stops your fine for a few extra years there...

word302

My question is was that attrition really that unexpected. The retirement numbers have been published for years. Compass hosed themselves by stopping hiring. Horizon hosed themselves by holding out on getting a deal signed with their pilots. Skywest has very smart management but I don't think that will be enough for the storm that's coming.

Excargodog

I think it was a cultural thing. They could see the numbers, but the reality was so foreign to anything they'd ever known that they were unable to believe - at a very visceral level - that it would ever really happen.

Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.

rickair7777

Maybe so. Maybe the regionals just assumed the majors would do something about it.

There IS a solution, sponsored ab initio, perhaps salaried while in training. In the case of legacies, this would involve CFI to 1500 hours, then some time as a regional FO, then regional CA, before transitioning to mainline.

Airlines without feed would have to place 1500 hour pilots directly at mainline (ie jetbue). The way I would manage that is once IOE was done, the noobs would be limited to flying only with specially trained volunteer "mentor" CA's (who would get paid an over-ride) for about 1000 hours. The mentors would basically be trained as check-airmen, but not necessarily designated (since the FAA caps the number designated).

But they'd better get started now, because if they try to do it in a panic once they start cancelling flights the bottleneck might be the availability of training aircraft...

UA just announced a guaranteed job track for applicants at several regionals... you get screened before you start at the regional, and then automatically flow to UA.

flydiamond

So it's ok for a 1500 hour ATP to fly with a revolving door of 2500 hour captains at a regional but at mainline they'd need to fly 1000 Hours with senior captains? Very flawed logic. A crj is no easier to fly than an Airbus.

blindfayth

Where did you see this?