US Airways

Samurai Sam

Samurai Sam

Well-Known Member
Let's talk majors! Anyone have any inside information on US Airways? They show they are hiring for the E190. Is this mainline flying? Any ideas or news on what's going on fiscally? Maybe the near future outlook for them? Any one work there currently and have good information on them?
 
Yes mainline flying... after their feeders are taken into account I'm hearing 10 off the street new hires. The job posting actually shows PHL for the E190.
 
I wouldn't recommend going unless you're desperate. They're never going to get a new contract at this rate, and pay rates for narrow body aircraft top out just barely above top out rates for 70-seaters at some regionals. The internal fighting between East and West is vicious, and probably won't be over for many years to come. Just a bad situation.
 
I thought about applying.....then I came to my friggin' senses. Honestly, US Airways is on a collision course with catastrophe. They're CEO is already blatantly pimping the company for another merger, and they can't even get the one that was "finalized" years ago finished up. The last thing you want to be is last on a seniority list with a company that's got questionable union representation (not a knock on USAPA, the pilot group in general just honestly doesn't know what it wants right now) in the middle of a merger. Shaky ground at best. Scary as this sounds, I'd rather stay an RJ CA in Pinnacle than roll the dice on US Airways right now.
 
Great points. I'm just stagnated on my rj 700 and the outlook doesn't look any better. SkyWest is now talking about training FO's as Captains, and bouncing them back and forth between left and right seat. All for the same poor ass pay. All because they don't have enough captains to do the flying that United and Delta are laying down on the table, and now with the Alaska flying, its even tighter. They can't seem to find any pilots to hire either. They were doing 50 pilots a class supposedly indefinately, but now the pilot pool has run dry and people don't want to become professional pilots. Can we blame them?
 
Samurai Sam said:
SkyWest is now talking about training FO's as Captains, and bouncing them back and forth between left and right seat. All for the same poor ass pay.
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Give USAPA as much grief as you want, but at least they have a contract that prevents stuff like that.

(not directed at you Samurai Sam, just a general observation)
 
Samurai Sam said:
.... They were doing 50 pilots a class supposedly indefinately, but now the pilot pool has run dry and people don't want to become professional pilots. Can we blame them?
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Exactly right. Pay me what I make to fly this desk and I'll gladly go back to flying. If that never happens I can at least pay the bills/provide for the family doing this forever.
 
ATN_Pilot said:
I wouldn't recommend going unless you're desperate. They're never going to get a new contract at this rate, and pay rates for narrow body aircraft top out just barely above top out rates for 70-seaters at some regionals. The internal fighting between East and West is vicious, and probably won't be over for many years to come. Just a bad situation.
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+1
 
Seriously? That's possible? I sure as hell wouldn't sign for an airplane at my crappy regional FO pay.
 
EVERY SINGLE AIRWAYS, employee that I have talked to says STAY AWAY. that's more than enough info for me right there. I was actually talking to one yesterday. He said to only go to airways if I was furloughed from my regional and even then keep it as a very very last resort.
 
ATN_Pilot said:
Yes, but it reduces the overall number of real Captain slots that the company needs to maintain. I'm not a fan of the system.
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The other side of this is that the company continually downgrades captains at a whim, our at least that's what ours has done. And then when we NEED captains and are canceling flights because we don't have enough, the company won't re-upgrade anybody until the staffing situation is so dire that there's almost no possible fix.

As I understand it, we lost a lot of money because of our management group's missteps in this area. An organized lance captain system could have saved us a lot of grief over the last 6 months.
 
jtrain609 said:
The other side of this is that the company continually downgrades captains at a whim, our at least that's what ours has done. And then when we NEED captains and are canceling flights because we don't have enough, the company won't re-upgrade anybody until the staffing situation is so dire that there's almost no possible fix.

As I understand it, we lost a lot of money because of our management group's missteps in this area. An organized lance captain system could have saved us a lot of grief over the last 6 months.
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The way to fix that problem is with a staffing formula. Require the company to maintain a certain number of pilots (or lines) in a position based on the block hours. That's what we have in our contract.
 
It's not a bad idea, but requires the company to actually follow the contract.

(If you haven't heard how bad it's gotten, well, it's pretty bad)
 
ATN_Pilot said:
The way to fix that problem is with a staffing formula. Require the company to maintain a certain number of pilots (or lines) in a position based on the block hours. That's what we have in our contract.
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That works fine if your block hours stay stable. When you own your own flying that's feasible. When your flying varies month to month depending on how much a mainline carrier doles out to you, it's not so feasible. Our block hours vary anywhere from 5% to 35% month to month.
 
jtrain609 said:
It's not a bad idea, but requires the company to actually follow the contract.

(If you haven't heard how bad it's gotten, well, it's pretty bad)
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Wasn't aware that things had gotten that bad over there. In any case, regardless of the contractual provision, whether it's lance captains or a staffing formula, if the company isn't following the contract, then they aren't going to follow either provision properly. The grievance process is the only remedy.

BobDDuck said:
That works fine if your block hours stay stable. When you own your own flying that's feasible. When your flying varies month to month depending on how much a mainline carrier doles out to you, it's not so feasible. Our block hours vary anywhere from 5% to 35% month to month.
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Our flying doesn't stay stable either. It can vary by huge amounts month to month. The company just has to staff for the heavier months and eat the extra pilots during the lean months.
 
BobDDuck said:
Give USAPA as much grief as you want, but at least they have a contract that prevents stuff like that.

(not directed at you Samurai Sam, just a general observation)
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There's a random rumor out there about a lance-captain style program, but it says *nothing* about flying left seat for FO rates. That wouldn't happen.

The issue of Skywests' policy manual is a bit more complicated than "they don't have a contract". Technically it is a legally binding document, and it lays out the process for amending it (requires the approval of SAPA). It definitely have all the enforcement provisions of a true CBA and there are some pretty big holes in it that allow for the company to implement their interpretation, but a program like lance captains could not be implemented without SAPA approval. There are plenty of things the company wants to do but can't because SAPA is unwilling to sign off on changes to the policy manual.
 
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