The flow is a big joke. Guys like @
Firebird2XC have a better chance up moving to mainline on their own, rather than waiting for flow to suck them up. Republic has the new e-jets and they are having trouble recruiting pilots. Eagle is expensive because they have too many senior guys who don't want to move on. I don't think taking concessions would have solved this problem, but I admit, I have no clue.
This is accurate. I've been encouraged by acquiring flowthrough rights of my own in the past ('Protected Pilot' arbitration settlement, July 2011) but the reality is they don't mean much except for a vague promise in the future. Plus, if you really take the time to study the history of the original Flowback/Flowthrough agreement, 'Letter 3', you realize that the company can reneg on that promise and force you to drag them to court. They've done exactly that- a few times. We've won some things, and even got some payouts to make affected pilots whole, but it's a process that took years. Pilots that were promised they'd be at American in 5 years back in the late 90's are just now seeing flow in the last few years. That's a lot more than 5 years.
Wanna see how the flowthrough looks for a new hire? My seniority number is mid 1700's. If you allot for 300 pilots to stick it out at Eagle that are senior, that leaves, say, 1450 pilots senior to me. If Eagle's
really going the way of the dodo, then they'd be mad not to take flow. Assume, then, there are some close to retirement, or don't care, or whatever. Lop off another 200. That's 1150.
If 1150 pilots before me had to flow, and you took the most optimistic attrition rate of about 80 a month (50 flowing, 30 leaving for elsewhere), that's about 14 months until I see flow. That's ONLY if everybody goes, and hiring and attrition continues at exactly that rate. Let's say people stop leaving quite so quick, so a more realistic 15 per month bail out, and 30 per month get to flow. At 45 per month, that's 25 months.
Sounds good, right? Wrong. I'VE ALREADY BEEN HERE OVER SIX YEARS. For a newhire, that's an ADDITIONAL 1300 pilots between them and flow- and the more junior you get, the less likely it'll be that they're leaving for Virgin Galactic. So that's only 30 per month, more or less. That's an *additional* 43 months. IN OTHER WORDS... THE most optimistic plan I can concoct based on current trends and realistic numbers is 5.6 YEARS until you flow to AA. And that's IF... IF AA doesn't meter the flow to keep Eagle running in the interim, while the rest of the regional industry is choking and cavitating on the shortage of new hire pilots.
So let's add another year or two, just to be fair. Now you're coming up on seven years or so.
Sounds peachy, right? But you're missing something else. At 1500 hours, you can apply directly to places like Delta and United. So not every class at Eagle will fill. Eagle will lose pilots faster than they could ever hope to replace us because people are holding out for airline jobs with actual decent paychecks. So things will vaporlock at Eagle.
Eagle will shrink, but it won't be because we angered the airline overlords because we dared to think we were worth what they already promised us. It'll be because the regional market won't be sustainable unless they make some serious changes to the way they treat employees.
