Crew Shortage Cancels Flights (article, Pinnacle)

we canceled over 500 flights last month... and my finger got tired of hitting IGNORE when screw scheduling called... but it looks like the training department is starting to spit out at least a couple more pilots for each seat position compared to attrition.. about damn time!
 
I'm afraid of what the double whammy of summer flying with FedEx ramping up hiring is gonna do to us. The odds of me getting JMd are pretty slim since I generally already fly close to 95 hours a month anyway, and we tend to be a little better staffed on the FO side. The CAs I fly with say that not a day off goes by that scheduling doesn't call trying to JM them, though.
 
From the article:
Lincoln Airport says crew shortages for Northwest Airlines' regional carrier have been hurting service to Nebraska's capital city.

Bob McNally, the airport operations director, said crew limitation or schedule changes had canceled 20 Northwest Airlink flights in the past 30 days.
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From a previous post of mine:
As I was walking through the LNK airport I noticed two cancelled NW Airlink flights to MSP.
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Noticed another MSP cancellation in Lincoln yesterday. You guys seriously don't like Nebraska, do ya? :D
 
Part of the problem stems from the "We have an overage of pilots and we can't sign an ASA with NWA without a new pilot contract" stunt they pulled last fall. Put us on a hiring freeze and stopped upgrades to try to force us to sign a mediocre contract. It didn't work, and management is paying the price right now. MSP was hit hardest, I think. They've been short on CAs more than even DTW, and they are just NOW starting to get the open vacancies they need to be properly staffed up there (maybe BrettinLJ can chime in a bit better since he's been based in MSP for a few months now). Even then, you're looking at guys being awarded CA right now not hiting the line for several months. If they had continued upgrades and hiring instead of pulling that stunt, we'd be better off. Might not be staffed where we need to be, but we wouldn't be cancelling as many flights.

On a side note, NWA mainline has also been cancelling flights due to crew shortages.
 
CHQ and Mesa are hurting for pilots too. Not sure about SKywest, but i think they are short too. Its industry wide.

And clumpinglitter said it best. Its a manufactured shortage. There are plenty of pilots. Just not enough to do it at the rates airlnes are willing to pay.
 
When I saw the thread title I thought steve got caught up playing Dance Dance Revolution in his uniform again. :)
 
I know Mesa is hiring off the street Captains so why doesn't Pinnacle do that? If there is this much of shortage you guys are talking about why don't they do that?
 
Aero_Engineer said:
I know Mesa is hiring off the street Captains so why doesn't Pinnacle do that? If there is this much of shortage you guys are talking about why don't they do that?
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It's been tossed around. We have the FOs to upgrade right now. What we're short on is simulators, instructors, classrooms, etc. The pipeline is only so big. We're already sending guys to STL, CLT and DEN for sim training, and we might need more. See, we're doing new hire, upgrade, recurrent and Cat II training all at once, and we've only got three sims here in MEM. Even when I was in new hire training, those sims were book solid. I got my sim schedule changed no less than 4 times due to conflicts trying to get recurrents done and back on the line and upgrades finished up. New hire goes to the back of the line when it comes ot sim scheduling. Even if we DID hire street CAs, we'd have the same problem, no place to train them.

In the future, with all the low time FOs being hired, the CA mins are going to have to be lowered or they'll have to hire street CAs. The question is, who in their right mind would come here as a street CA? The way things are now, if you've got the time, you're probably close to upgrade where you are. Why would you start at the bottom of another seniority list to be a reserve CA for the whole time you're there. The last round of street CAs are just NOW starting to get off reserve. Last round, most of the guys came from Eagle due to upgrades taking forever there. Now that that's probably changing. I doubt those guys would leave Eagle to roll the dice over here. By the time they would have upgraded at Eagle, they'd still be on reserve here.
 
Tram said:
I learned that lesson early on also...

I never answer it on my on days either.. They can leave a message.. :)
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That is a good idea. I fly with guys that buy pre-paid phones and use it as a work number. It seems to work out nicely.
 
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