PSA Charlotte Base

When bidding for base as a new hire, do you rank your selections in desired order? If you draw one of your secondary choices does the bid for your higher choice stand or do you have to bid for it again each month?

I'll be commuting from ATL. Thus, CLT would be my first choice. However, CVG also looks to be a decent commute.
I want to emphasize what others have already said, but be careful of overestimating the ATL-CVG commute. There are many Delta guys doing that commute, which will make it very challenging for you.
 
I got CLT on my first bid while still in Systems... There will be more bids awards before I finish IOE and I might change my mind.
 
New hire FO's at PSA can get just about anywhere they want right now. DCA based FOs are getting zero reserve time, and holding a line immediately out of IOE.
 
Hey guys. I don't know if you guys can help. I did the PSA interview last week, did a good job and got the FO position. The CA recruiter asked me to email the HR department to start the hiring process what I did as soon as I came at my hotel room but since that no contact from them. Is it normal these 2 weeks without contact from them ? I refused others companies waiting for a contact from PSA. I'm starting getting nervous
 
Hey guys. I don't know if you guys can help. I did the PSA interview last week, did a good job and got the FO position. The CA recruiter asked me to email the HR department to start the hiring process what I did as soon as I came at my hotel room but since that no contact from them. Is it normal these 2 weeks without contact from them ? I refused others companies waiting for a contact from PSA. I'm starting getting nervous

Pm me with name and I’ll forward to my guy.
 
Charlotte is not going away as a base any time soon. Airports, like Airlines, have internal costs which allows the investment community to compare airport operations for efficiency etc. Airline cost is CASM or Cost per Available Seat Mile. Airports have Cost per enplaned passenger.

Cost per enplaned passenger (CPEP) is defined as all landing fees, airside usage charges, fuel flowage fees, terminal rents and other airline payments to airports divided by enplaned passengers. The median CPEP for all airports in a recent survey of airport rates and charges was between $5-6, with large hubs having slightly higher costs than small and medium hubs.
https://trid.trb.org/view.aspx?id=664273

Pittsburgh, a former US Airways hub at one time had an enplaned passenger cost approaching $15.00. For 2017, it's: [ The budget lowers airport rates and charges for the fifth straight year, projecting a cost per enplaned passenger (CPE) of $11.30.] http://www.flypittsburgh.com/newsro...urgh-international-airport-has-busiest-summer

Charlotte, on the other hand, under the direction of Jerry Orr, decided over 30 years ago to keep the enplaned passenger costs low to stimulate traffic and regional and airline growth. As a result CLT has new runways, and new terminal under construction and the inter-modal rail / air terminal. The CLT cost per enplaned passenger is $1.35 in 2016. https://www.dwuconsulting.com/airport-finance/articles/cost-per-enplaned-passenger

Airline agreements

Gentry describes 2016 as a good year for Charlotte Douglas because of a significant increase in local and international traffic (see traffic mix below), the continued upward trend in cargo volumes and the “milestone” renegotiation of its lease agreement with the airlines.
http://www.airport-world.com/features/airport-profiles/6265-destination-clt.html

She notes that the new lease agreement provides more “favourable terms” for the airport in terms of airline fees for the usage of its facilities, and paves the way for future expansion without jeopardising CLT’s status of providing the lowest cost per enplaned passenger (CPE) at a major US hub.

Doug Parker knows a good deal when he has one and he is not going to doing anything to reduce CLT. It is the most cost efficient hub in the US. CLT will likely increase, as evidenced by the new terminal construction.
 
Charlotte is not going away as a base any time soon. Airports, like Airlines, have internal costs which allows the investment community to compare airport operations for efficiency etc. Airline cost is CASM or Cost per Available Seat Mile. Airports have Cost per enplaned passenger.

Cost per enplaned passenger (CPEP) is defined as all landing fees, airside usage charges, fuel flowage fees, terminal rents and other airline payments to airports divided by enplaned passengers. The median CPEP for all airports in a recent survey of airport rates and charges was between $5-6, with large hubs having slightly higher costs than small and medium hubs.
https://trid.trb.org/view.aspx?id=664273

Pittsburgh, a former US Airways hub at one time had an enplaned passenger cost approaching $15.00. For 2017, it's: [ The budget lowers airport rates and charges for the fifth straight year, projecting a cost per enplaned passenger (CPE) of $11.30.] http://www.flypittsburgh.com/newsro...urgh-international-airport-has-busiest-summer

Charlotte, on the other hand, under the direction of Jerry Orr, decided over 30 years ago to keep the enplaned passenger costs low to stimulate traffic and regional and airline growth. As a result CLT has new runways, and new terminal under construction and the inter-modal rail / air terminal. The CLT cost per enplaned passenger is $1.35 in 2016. https://www.dwuconsulting.com/airport-finance/articles/cost-per-enplaned-passenger

Airline agreements

Gentry describes 2016 as a good year for Charlotte Douglas because of a significant increase in local and international traffic (see traffic mix below), the continued upward trend in cargo volumes and the “milestone” renegotiation of its lease agreement with the airlines.
http://www.airport-world.com/features/airport-profiles/6265-destination-clt.html

She notes that the new lease agreement provides more “favourable terms” for the airport in terms of airline fees for the usage of its facilities, and paves the way for future expansion without jeopardising CLT’s status of providing the lowest cost per enplaned passenger (CPE) at a major US hub.

Doug Parker knows a good deal when he has one and he is not going to doing anything to reduce CLT. It is the most cost efficient hub in the US. CLT will likely increase, as evidenced by the new terminal construction.

I agree it is unlikely that American will de-hub CLT, but that doesn't mean PSA will always have a base there. Regional airlines tend to have their flying shifted around quite often, and bases are often very unstable at regionals.
 
Hey guys. I don't know if you guys can help. I did the PSA interview last week, did a good job and got the FO position. The CA recruiter asked me to email the HR department to start the hiring process what I did as soon as I came at my hotel room but since that no contact from them. Is it normal these 2 weeks without contact from them ? I refused others companies waiting for a contact from PSA. I'm starting getting nervous

There should be an email address for Liz on the bottom of all of the documents that you received. If you don't have those, then reach out to Sarah or Amanda, who you should have been talking to before the interview.

I can not imagine a reason that you would need to email them after the interview, but if one of the interviewers said to, then just send another email. If you have a class date, then there is nothing else that we should need from you. You will receive all of your documents about 2 weeks before training starts, and you will have additional documents to fill out at that time.

If you don't hear back, email askapilot@psaairlines.com and someone should answer you quickly.
 
I agree it is unlikely that American will de-hub CLT, but that doesn't mean PSA will always have a base there. Regional airlines tend to have their flying shifted around quite often, and bases are often very unstable at regionals.
Yup...just ask the Mesa guys that were based in clt
 
In terms of a stable company and a stable base, you would have to admit that PSA being in CLT is one of the more stable pairings in the regional world.

Anything **could** happen, but some things are much less likely than others.
 
Yup...just ask the Mesa guys that were based in clt

Or look at Compass- they've only been around for a decade and not only have they closed all of their original bases, but all their current bases are in a completely different region of the country, all over 1,000 miles from any of the original ones.

CLT is a fortress hub for American, and probably will be for the forseeable future; and they will probably continue to use outsourced regional feed at CLT for the forseeable future. But there is no guarantee that any given regional carrier will continue to provide as much of that feed as they do now, or any at all.

Of course none of this is to say PSA would be a bad choice for someone who lives near CLT. Even if it does close eventually, hopefully they would have at least some seniority by then, which could help them hold a schedule that would be easier to commute to by that time. But you can never count on a base to last, especially at a regional.
 
PSA just announced a few new LOAs (that’s Letter of Agreement for the uninitiated) with ALPA.

*January 2018 we flow 6 /month, February 2018 we flow 8, and starting March 2018 flow goes to 10 /month. We will likely be flowing 2014 hires in late 2018 - early 2019 which is pretty incredible. Flow will also be looked at again in the future for possible increases. Our MEC Chairman fought very hard to get our pilot group this increase. AA’s recruiting department fought back against it pretty hard in favor of more off the street hiring but they lost the battle in the end.

*Reserve improvements... A lot more transparency with how trips are assigned and reserve availability on a given day. No more calling in the day prior to a reserve assignment. Some other stuff too. I think the big thing is that basically because of a transparent “first out, last out” system that will work based on seniority it will allow senior pilots to bid reserve and not work very much if they don’t want to.

*Lastly an LOA was signed that has been pretty controversial amongst our pilot group. Prior to this LOA, PSA has had over 180 FOs who were eligible bypassing upgrade for one reason or another. The recurring theme is generally, “Why would I give up 17-18 days off /month for reserve and 11 days off /month to make almost the same amount of money?”. And recently the Captain vacancies are going unfilled. Per the contract, the company has the option to award upgrade to FOs in reverse seniority order. So basically the most junior FOs would essentially be forced to upgrade. This creates a number of issues that the company would prefer to avoid. So as a result of this the company and PSA ALPA agreed through an LOA that any forced-upgrades would happen from the top-down. You can see why this is cause for many to be angry.

So anyway, that’s the latest and greatest. We just announced a SAV Mx base opening spring 2018 and the company has said they are looking closely at a possible ORF crew base to support our increasing PHL flying and ongoing DCA operations. I would expect a new crew base announcement within the next couple months and perhaps one more to go in 2019.
 
PSA just announced a few new LOAs (that’s Letter of Agreement for the uninitiated) with ALPA.

*January 2018 we flow 6 /month, February 2018 we flow 8, and starting March 2018 flow goes to 10 /month. We will likely be flowing 2014 hires in late 2018 - early 2019 which is pretty incredible. Flow will also be looked at again in the future for possible increases. Our MEC Chairman fought very hard to get our pilot group this increase. AA’s recruiting department fought back against it pretty hard in favor of more off the street hiring but they lost the battle in the end.

*Reserve improvements... A lot more transparency with how trips are assigned and reserve availability on a given day. No more calling in the day prior to a reserve assignment. Some other stuff too. I think the big thing is that basically because of a transparent “first out, last out” system that will work based on seniority it will allow senior pilots to bid reserve and not work very much if they don’t want to.

*Lastly an LOA was signed that has been pretty controversial amongst our pilot group. Prior to this LOA, PSA has had over 180 FOs who were eligible bypassing upgrade for one reason or another. The recurring theme is generally, “Why would I give up 17-18 days off /month for reserve and 11 days off /month to make almost the same amount of money?”. And recently the Captain vacancies are going unfilled. Per the contract, the company has the option to award upgrade to FOs in reverse seniority order. So basically the most junior FOs would essentially be forced to upgrade. This creates a number of issues that the company would prefer to avoid. So as a result of this the company and PSA ALPA agreed through an LOA that any forced-upgrades would happen from the top-down. You can see why this is cause for many to be angry.

So anyway, that’s the latest and greatest. We just announced a SAV Mx base opening spring 2018 and the company has said they are looking closely at a possible ORF crew base to support our increasing PHL flying and ongoing DCA operations. I would expect a new crew base announcement within the next couple months and perhaps one more to go in 2019.

That reverse order forced upgrade was an issue being discussed as far back as 2010. We talked about changing the language then, because it didn't effect anybody (captain spots weren't goung unfilled) but decided to leave it as there was no way that we could see that ever happening. Crazy times we live in.

Good news about the reserve language. As somebody who got abused by that section of the contract for a very, very long time, it's a needed improvement.
 
Irony alert....I remember as a kid watching the TPiR and one of the showcases was a 150/152 with a private ticket included.
Pam only got 30 hours of instruction with her new Grumman...There was another one that gave away an ultra light. Pretty groovy, I need to get on some game shows!

 
Yalls' union signed an LOA forcing 180 FOs to upgrade without a vote? The flow is only 10 a month after it increases? Yikes

There has been much grumbling that this was done without a vote.

I am irked in that there are no hard, ala Endeavor, pay increases and that nothing really changes with reserve rules other than being able to see the grid with seniority attached.
 
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The pay is most likely going to be tied to the massive change that is PBS. That's going to be a hard fight for the MEC to work out. So the union leadership got the easy win first.

And there are ways for FOs to avoid getting forced to upgrade. Besides, no one will be forced to upgrade if enough FOs do it voluntarily already. Not having to spend as much time on reserve because of the increased movement from almost doubling our flows, plus the coming reserve rule improvements, should entice many more upgrades.
 
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