Ameriflight and RACCA on the pilot shortage
- Thread starter Beefy McGee
- Start date
Inverted
mmmmmm wine
The hell you guys are. When was the last time somebody was allowed to take vacation? I know several guys who don't even have the option for a day off, they are the only ones covering a run so if they call in sick, the run doesn't go. That doesn't sound like proper staffing levels to me.
I don't believe they haven't missed a run for one second, but if they didn't it is at the expense of the already overworked pilot group.
Maurus
The Great Gazoo
SkyWest obviously isn't blacklisted but unless they vote in ALPA they will be at a disadvantage for a legacy slot. From what I understand United and Delta have a requirement for a high percentage of new hires to be ALPA members. Factor in that they also hire approximately 50% military and you find that there is very little opportunity for a Skywest guy to get in at United or Delta when compared to the ALPA regionals.
American has the interesting idea that they will be able to handle all their pilot hiring via flows and Military hiring. This leaves out Skywest pilots again.
Skywest isn't blacklisted, but they will likely not move to the legacies as fast as the guys at the other regionals since they now need to compete with everyone for a much smaller chunk of the hiring. Republic suffers from the same issues.
At this point I would say this is likely. If SWA keeps having issues with people not showing up to class then I can see them looking to other sources of pilots but that will take time. Alaska Air is definitely a Legacy I can see an AMFer being able to go. They are not afraid to hire a single pilot freight guy and have proven that many a time.
I have met some people that made the jump directly from AMF to United and SWA but they were hired on prior to the HR numbers era of hiring.
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Tommay85
Well-Known Member
Dude, you need to seriously chill out. Look at the context of me saying "we're OK"
It was in response to the possibility that we may or have missed service due to staffing. That is it. I get the monthly reports. Most bases are 100%. The worst I've seen was 98 and it was maintenance related, not staffing.
Ameriflight still being in business is absolutely on the backs of its pilots and mechanics. I'm not disagreeing with you there.
Inverted
mmmmmm wine
Well, my two SKW friends that went to United within the last 6 months might disagree with you. ALPA or no ALPA, they fly for the carriers they are getting hired at, there isn't even a shred of truth to SKW being picked less than other regionals.
American doesn't have the idea you mentioned, I am not sure where you got that. They are actively hiring and filling interview slots with non military and flow pilots.
Again, not sure where you are getting this info, because it is simply not correct. Nobody is hitting Alaska, or SWA for that matter, right from AMF. When I say right from AMF I mean they flight instructed, went to AMF, then went to a major/national/mainline. It ain't happening unless there is some serious internal recommendation... Not right now, and not into the foreseeable future.
Correction, you met people that made the jump directly when the commuters were flying the same equipment as AMF.
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mmmmmm wine
I am chill, didn't mean to sound like I was worked up. But saying you are "ok" on staffing levels when pilots are having to pull double shifts for runs, and work on their days off isn't "ok" in my opinion, nor in any business sense.
I would also venture a guess to say that those numbers include times that AMF had to farm work out to another company.
Tommay85
Well-Known Member
Indeed it does
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mmmmmm wine
So AMF gets credit for being properly staffed and not missing runs by paying other people to do the runs they miss because of improper staffing levels?
Maurus
The Great Gazoo
Did I say that they can't be hired? I said that they have less opportunity and are competing for a smaller piece of the pie. XJT alone covers over 30% of United hiring.
@ATN_Pilot or @Seggy . Does United and/or Delta have a requirement or preference to hire X% of ALPA regional guys?
@Aero Crew Solutions mentioned they were making the transition with a representative from AA sitting in the back of the room at the ORD career fair on May 8th.
I said Alaska could be a possibility. They have hired numerous guys from Alaska 135 outfits without a shred of turbine time.
AMF had EMB-145s and CRJs before? Who knew?Correction, you met people that made the jump directly when the commuters were flying the same equipment as AMF.
The SWA guy sure, but the United (L-CAL) guy was hired on (and subsequently furloughed) in the mid to late 2000's. The 19 seaters were gone (except for EAS stuff) at that point and the jets vastly outnumbered the 30+ seat T-props that remained.
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z987k
Well-Known Member
Not recently. They hired one of our Lear guys. They hired a friend that spent 8 months at Compass, they're hiring people out of Saabs and Dash 8s up here. I've not heard of a single 207 or 208 driver going. I know a few 1900 drivers got hired at NAC.
Maurus
The Great Gazoo
I can see that, but they still are hiring guys out of the smaller non-121 equipment and have had fairly recent history of hiring piston guys.
Tommay85
Well-Known Member
The point I was making is that they are keeping the runs covered and other companies are not. The main point was, that at the beginning of the day, Ameriflight has had a plane and a crew on the schedule(company metal or charter) and other companies do not and are taking service failures. The context of that being that AMF isn't about to lose contracts. Other companies probably are and even though our staffing isn't where it should be, we aren't about to lose any contracts and I'm not going to sweat for my own employment until that happens. Which it probably won't.
Most of the charters have been for maintenance issues. Only a couple have been for sick calls and there are 2 or 3 runs permanently chartered due to aircraft availability. 6909 in SJU for example.
Hacker15e
Who am I? Where are my pants?
As someone who has been observing the hiring practices of the majors for the last 8-10 years, I can say I've never even once heard this rumor.
Where would such a requirement come from?
Maurus
The Great Gazoo
It is possible I misheard but it would have been at the United Open House I attended last year.
It could be in the contract of the pilot group or it might just be something they have always done but wasn't in stone. Hopefully Seggy or Todd will reply to my earlier post.
Cal Goat
Prestige Worldwide™
SlumTodd_Millionaire
Most Hated Member
More than a little misleading.
The Captain of 3701 was really a Trans States pilot. That's where he got most of his time. He went to Gulfstream as a street captain with a lot of flight time, not as a first officer program customer.
The FO of the Lexington crash wasn't the pilot flying, and the captain was not a Streamer. The FO also happened to work in the training department at Gulfstream and wasn't some low time FO program newbie.
The FO of the Colgan crash was not a Streamer. The Captain had somewhere around 5k hours and had been at Colgan for quite a while.
So claiming that these are Gulfstream related crashes is patently absurd. Just a convenient sound bite for people who want to push a certain agenda. Gulfstream's program sucked for the profession, but it was not the slightest bit unsafe. You might want to ask yourself why the airline that is supposedly so notorious for churning out unsafe pilots never once in its considerably lengthy history had a single fatal accident. Hell, even an accident with significant injuries.
I can't remember anything on the UAL side, but Delta and American both have significant flow-through and preferential hiring/interview programs that suck up a hell of a lot of the slots. So if you're a Skywest pilots trying to get a job at AMR, and there are 20 slots in a class, you're fighting over maybe 5 of them while a bunch of guys are flowing right into the other 15. I'd much rather be the guy at PSA with the virtually guaranteed slot than the guy at Skywest hoping to be lucky enough to grab one of those five.
SmoothLanderJ
Well-Known Member
z987k said:
Correct..