AAG Wholly Owned Bonuses

grchase90 said:
So, admittedly I've only been 121 for 1.5 years, but this is my take on how this went down. Mngt sent us an email last night to tell us they would present the same deal as envoy today to the MEC. They presented deal to MEC. MEC knew full well that company would continue with new hire bonuses because pre hire money isn't considered negotiable per our MEC chair. MEC says, " we don't like this deal we want more." Mgmt says, "we aren't intrested in renegotiating pay or bonuses beyond what our parent company AAG has already authorized." So my take is that there wasn't anything else really on the table at these discussions and furthermore the company really doesn't care whether we take the deal or not because the money comes from AAG directly anyways. So I guess I just see it as there was nothing really to gain from the discussions today. Both sides knew how it was going to down. If I were a PSA FO with less than 500 hours. I'm already too far down the totem pole to even see an upgrade in the next few years and any other regional will pay me for my work experience already acquired. So why shouldn't I leave? The Capt's had nothing to gain from this deal to start. Hence the FO's on property only lose on this deal.
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Because you are part of a Collective Bargaining Agreement (emphasis on collective). We all work under the same contract and deserve the same rewards. Sorry you didn't get your bonus but I'm sure you wouldn't like or think it is fair if the company wanted to give every captain a retention bonus so they woudn't leave for another major or LCC prior to flowing. The MEC did the right thing. Do you think the American, United, or Delta MEC would allow retention bonuses just for FOs?
 
grchase90 said:
So, admittedly I've only been 121 for 1.5 years, but this is my take on how this went down. Mngt sent us an email last night to tell us they would present the same deal as envoy today to the MEC. They presented deal to MEC. MEC knew full well that company would continue with new hire bonuses because pre hire money isn't considered negotiable per our MEC chair. MEC says, " we don't like this deal we want more." Mgmt says, "we aren't intrested in renegotiating pay or bonuses beyond what our parent company AAG has already authorized." So my take is that there wasn't anything else really on the table at these discussions and furthermore the company really doesn't care whether we take the deal or not because the money comes from AAG directly anyways. So I guess I just see it as there was nothing really to gain from the discussions today. Both sides knew how it was going to down. If I were a PSA FO with less than 500 hours. I'm already too far down the totem pole to even see an upgrade in the next few years and any other regional will pay me for my work experience already acquired. So why shouldn't I leave? The Capt's had nothing to gain from this deal to start. Hence the FO's on property only lose on this deal.
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No we ALL lose. But we would of ultimately all lost if only the FOs got a retention bonus.

IThe fact that the company released that email before the union had a chance to come to the pilot group with something concrete (like a finalized deal) is indicative of subversive politics in and of itself. They are trying to be divisive and get away with attracting new hires as cheap as they possibly can. They know that a lot of FOs will vote for bonuses with or without the CAs being included. And they know that by releasing that email, timed with the announcement by Envoy, they left a lot of pilots at PSA salivating for that money (as evidenced by some of the replies here). Don't play into their hand. We have a union because they represent a UNIFIED pilot group. Not just the FOs or just the CAs. I support a bonus. But I support a bonus for all.

Good on PSA and Piedmont for standing strong and not helping the company fix the problem they created. They will come back to the table. And if they don't, then they don't. We all have decisions to make.

10K - 15K is still not that attractive compared to what many regionals are offering currently.
 
chrisreedrules said:
The fact that the company released that email before the union had a chance to come to the pilot group with something concrete (like a finalized deal) is indicative of subversive politics in and of itself. They are trying to be divisive and get away with attracting new hires as cheap as they possibly can. They know that a lot of FOs will vote for bonuses with or without the CAs being included. And they know that by releasing that email, timed with the announcement by Envoy, they left a lot of pilots at PSA salivating for that money (as evidenced by some of the replies here). Don't play into their hand. We have a union because they represent a UNIFIED pilot group. Not just the FOs or just the CAs. I support a bonus. But I support a bonus for all.

Good on PSA and Piedmont for standing strong and not helping the company fix the problem they created. They will come back to the table. And if they don't, then they don't. We all have decisions to make.

10K - 15K is still not that attractive compared to what many regionals are offering currently.
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First, I agree that I would like to see the bonus for all pilots, not just FO's. The captain I was just flying with found the company e-mail first and shared it with me along with some reaction from a texting group he was in.

After I saw the Envoy offer, my thought was to trade in the $10 per-121-hour hiring bonus for the retention bonus to be applied to the captains. The only thing the 121-time bonus does is poach for pilots from other regionals. I don't see that as needful or particularly useful. But who knows if this was a take-it-or-leave-it offer or open to discussion? It would be nice to hear a peep out of the MEC as to their view of the situation.

That said, I'm not sure I understand why Chrisreed thinks the company "created" the pilot hiring/retention problem since it's impacting every regional?
 
FlyingT said:
That said, I'm not sure I understand why Chrisreed thinks the company "created" the pilot hiring/retention problem since it's impacting every regional?
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It is impacting every regional, but other regionals have done better jobs of mitigating, rather than exacerbating its effects.
 
FlyingT said:
First, I agree that I would like to see the bonus for all pilots, not just FO's. The captain I was just flying with found the company e-mail first and shared it with me along with some reaction from a texting group he was in.

After I saw the Envoy offer, my thought was to trade in the $10 per-121-hour hiring bonus for the retention bonus to be applied to the captains. The only thing the 121-time bonus does is poach for pilots from other regionals. I don't see that as needful or particularly useful. But who knows if this was a take-it-or-leave-it offer or open to discussion? It would be nice to hear a peep out of the MEC as to their view of the situation.

That said, I'm not sure I understand why Chrisreed thinks the company "created" the pilot hiring/retention problem since it's impacting every regional?
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First of all, you have to understand something... The management at the wholly owneds don't really call any shots. AAG does. Our management is just middle management. They aren't decision makers, they are bean counters. There is a reason there was no flexibility in their negotiations. Their leash just isn't that long.

That being said, AAG is exacerbating its shortage of applicants at all 3 of its wholly owneds by not addressing the real issue. Contract and pay improvements. You think 5K - 15K is going to attract applicants? Think again. This isn't going to work. Not when a bunch of other regionals already offer similar bonuses PLUS better contracts and FO pay.

That being said, I understand that some people are saying that we just turned down free money. We turned down something for nothing. I simply don't see it that way. Piedmont and PSA effectively told AAG that bonuses aren't going to fix the problem. You need to do better than that. Do I think that Envoy is wrong for taking the money? No, I don't. But then again, the problems they are facing are completely different than ours in a lot of ways. Their FOs have been FOs a lot longer than most of ours have. They have FOs who have been on reserve for years. I'm not saying that 20K wouldn't have been nice, but at this point, I consider it a slap in the face. "Yea we know we have serious issues, but here's some hush money, now go play pilot".
 
chrisreedrules said:
First of all, you have to understand something... The management at the wholly owneds don't really call any shots. AAG does. Our management is just middle management. They aren't decision makers, they are bean counters. There is a reason there was no flexibility in their negotiations. Their leash just isn't that long.

That being said, AAG is exacerbating its shortage of applicants at all 3 of its wholly owneds by not addressing the real issue. Contract and pay improvements. You think 5K - 15K is going to attract applicants? Think again. This isn't going to work. Not when a bunch of other regionals already offer similar bonuses PLUS better contracts and FO pay.

That being said, I understand that some people are saying that we just turned down free money. We turned down something for nothing. I simply don't see it that way. Piedmont and PSA effectively told AAG that bonuses aren't going to fix the problem. You need to do better than that. Do I think that Envoy is wrong for taking the money? No, I don't. But then again, the problems they are facing are completely different than ours in a lot of ways. Their FOs have been FOs a lot longer than most of ours have. They have FOs who have been on reserve for years. I'm not saying that 20K wouldn't have been nice, but at this point, I consider it a slap in the face. "Yea we know we have serious issues, but here's some hush money, now go play pilot".
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Didn't Piedmont take the bonuses? It's all over my FB feed, them advertising for new pilots and the new $15k bonus.
 
Maximillian_Jenius said:
Didn't Piedmont take the bonuses? It's all over my FB feed, them advertising for new pilots and the new $15k bonus.
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There were 2 different bonuses offered. A bonus of up to 15K for new hires, and a retention bonus of 20K paid out to current FOs on a quarterly basis for a period of 2 years. PSA and Piedmont's NCs turned down BOTH bonuses because we believe that they are band aid bonuses and do not address any of the real issues that would improve pay and qol for our pilot groups. Our companies went ahead and decided to offer the new hire bonuses against our good faith bargaining. Or should I say, AAG decided to offer the new hire bonuses. Envoy took both. While I'm disappointed we didn't get the bonus, I think it is evident that a 10 - 15K bonus is not even a real consideration for new hires considering what other regionals are offering. The bonuses will not help hiring or attrition. We believe they will be forced to come back to the table IF their intent is to make our airlines succeed. Piedmont's last class purportedly had 2 show up. PSA and Envoy each had 5 I think?
 
It's interesting to see that PDT went from open interviews at their open houses to by appointment only... Looks like they're trying to get a feel for the interest. The open house I attended in Jan had about 15 people attending and only 3 elected to interview. At the open house they talked about a bonus negotiations that would put them back toward the top of the industry pay wise, without having to use 90hrs of credit and perdiem to get into them into the ballpark... Needless to say the 10k for prior 121 guys fell way short of the expectations they were putting out.

I get the feeling that the pilots who were waiting to apply under a new improved bonus system are just going to go to endeavor or stay put where they are. 10k bonus hardly even offsets the paycut back to first year pay, let alone offsets the brutal reputation that PDTs schedules department has.
 
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As an Envoy Captain, I support the FO-only bonus. I agree it is not perfect, and is probably not enough, but I fly with FOs who have been in that seat for 8 years, others who have been reserve for 3-4 years, and they deserve it (and more). Additionally, I know we have 300 20+ year Captains who bypassed flow to AA. There is no possible way to convince AAG to sign off on bonuses for those 300 and the rest of us, and I wouldn't want our FOs to miss out on some much-needed money. FWIW I voted no for each of our previous TA's, but this seemed like a no-brainer to me, and I am glad our MEC went ahead with it. This MEC is not rolling over, they continue to fight hard on a long list of grievances.
 
wheelsup said:
The ironic part about all of this bickering is didn't Envoy give CA's a bigger bonus on the last contract?
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Same bonus, FOs get paid the remaining 5000 when they upgrade.

Edit: "same" or however you wish to view the payout schedule
 
All 3 wholly owneds are now offering a bonus for pilots with Pt 135 experience.

At PSA, in addition to the $10,000 new hire bonus, a pilot can qualify for up to an additional $5,000 with the applicable 135 experience.

At Envoy, in addition to the $5,000 new hire bonus, a pilot can qualify for up to an additional $10,000 with the applicable 135 experience.

And at Piedmont, I'm not sure of their new hire bonus incentive program, but a pilot with 135 time can qualify for up to $15,000 total with their new hire bonus and this new bonus just announced.
 
chrisreedrules said:
Endeavor or better is what I say. Any retention bonuses should be paid out to the entire pilot group, not just the FOs. And 10K /year for 2 years really isn't all that great. Going to have to do better than that.
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No need to pay retention bonuses to Captains, because the last thing you want as a First Officer is for Captains to stay. You want them to move on so you can move up. It's better for you. It's better for them. It's better for everyone
 
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