word302

You realize they've been hiring over 100/month for several months now? I don't think anyone else is growing right now. They are staffing the 175 for something big.

Blackwing

Four vacancies created by upgrades/transfers, one backfilled with a downgrade. Seems legit.

FML.

disillusioned

I agree. They are burning people out flying so much and PBS is blowing up trying to keep up with globalization with low staffing. Supposedly when SAPA brings this up, TG and MT want to hear it from the pilots. Whatever, it will just help keep people motivated to get out and SGU doesn't want people to stay here anyways.

I know that is what is being told to everyone, but it is simply not true or not keeping up with attrition. July 10th we had 3,574 pilots on the seniority list. Today we have 3,851. Yes that is a gain but only a net gain of 277 or 46 pilots per month. In that same time frame we have lost 267 pilots or 45 per month. So we may be hiring 90+ pilots per month, but we are only keeping half of them month over month.

But when talking about staffing the E175 for something big, you are probably right. July had 339 total E175 pilots and January had 571 (net gain of 232) So we have had a 60% increase in E175 staffing over the past 6 months but only a 12% increase in block hours flown in the E175. Anyone know of airlines out there that have some E175 flying up for grabs??

In the meantime, we will just keep running all the CRJ pilots into the dirt.

Squallrider

175 staffing in ORD 100 lines both sides 170 CA and 220 odd FOs on seniority list last time I checked, this can only mean gearing up to take flying from someone else including their aircraft, my bet would be republic, they have publicLly stated that they are king mainline partners to reduce flying.

As for upgrades on the CRJ slowing (years ago 20 upgrades on CRJ would have been huge news) it's waiting for a FOs to get through training, a process that can take three months, not because of shortage of new hires. We've grown quite a bit last year and CA as well as FOs have left for mainline and in some cases other regionals (FOs in most of those cases chasing a upgrade)

disillusioned

July seniority list had 108 CA and 109 FO for ORD E175. Bid info sheet had 83 CA and 80 FO.
January seniority list shows 174 CA and 237 FO. Meanwhile, the bid info showed 154 CA and 145 FO. But the really funny thing was that GLH for July was 78 and January was 80. Basically we went from 0% reserve coverage to 60%+

I agree that they are planning on taking Republics 175 flying and probably thought they would have it by now. Maybe the yes vote threw a wrench in the plans? And yes it sucks to have FO's waiting to get thru training but it's not going to get any better. Last year we had more FO's than CA leave but I think this year it will be the opposite. So it seems we have thrown all the hiring into the 175 bucket and are hoping that will pay off soon. Meanwhile, we are slowing down the CA hiring which will come back to bite us as more CA's leave. This was the first week in the last 18 months where we lost more CA than FO's (6 and 5) Guess we will see if the trend continues.

word302

While I get what you're saying, what do you expect them to do? They are hiring more than double what any other regional is getting. At some point attrition will be greater than hiring. There's only so much SIM time available and so many LCAs (which I think is the real hold up). It's a double edged sword. Turn away flying and possibly stagnate, or keep accepting flying and burn out your crews. I don't know what the answer is.

disillusioned

I agree with the LCA and think that is the true holdup. We are losing them and it sounds like there are new restrictions on how many we can have in each base.

Let me ask you a question. How much do you think SW gets for this extra flying? When Delta and United come to SW begging for them to pickup the flying, how much of a premium do you think SW puts on that flying? Do they do it for 50% more than normal block hours? 100%? I don't know what the markup is, but I do know that it is not fair that they force it on our workgroup for straight time.

I think they should've taken advantage of a time when things were slower to update their systems to be able to better utilize crews in the future. Their idea was to create an electronic leash with the EFB and turn everyone into reserves. Why can every other airline deal with 117 restrictions yet we have to do everything by hand?

Simple fact is the way they have always done it doesn't work anymore. They refuse to acknowledge that fact and so they will spin their wheels trying to bring new hires in as fast as everyone leaves. Simple QOL fixes could've been put in place that may not have kept people here, but slowed the FO exodus and shown employees that they matter. The culture shift here has been slowly convincing those that would've stayed to leave. Yeah new hires are cheaper but I have a feeling it will be more expensive in the long run. I'm not sure why it's good to have a 20 year pilot leave, but it's acceptable to have AS here for 30 plus years. Time will tell.

word302

We are putting 95% of new hires into the CRJ by the way.

word302

We are in agreement. Like I said I don't know what the answer is. They will unfortunately ride this out until it doesn't work anymore.

Caution Terrain

Fwiw, my friend at QX hired 10/13 was awarded a feb CA slot.