How good or bad is your Regional Staffed?

Gonzo

Gonzo

Well-Known Member
In light of the ASA memo.

Here at Eagle we are way under staffed. By my guess 300-450 pilots under staffed and we might loss 300+ more to AA this year. We are having to CX flights because a lack of crews. Word is we are averaging over 100 JMs a day.
 
It's the same song and dance over here.

"THEY'RE GOING TO CANCEL ALL OUR FLYING!!!"

"Yeah? And get who to fly it?"

"SOMEBODY!"

"Does airline 'somebody' have pilots?"

"NO, BUT...ZOMG I MIGHT LOSE MY JOB!"

"Grow a pair!"
 
Mine was staffed so poorly, they took the maximum allowable time to forward my records to Delta when I was hired, costing me a few hundred numbers of seniority. At one point I could have been my own captain.
 
Doug Taylor said:
Mine was staffed so poorly, they took the maximum allowable time to forward my records to Delta when I was hired, costing me a few hundred numbers of seniority. At one point I could have been my own captain.
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I was going to say that the rampant reassigning into days off was the most insulting part of working for the regionals but this takes the cake.. A friend of mine from XJT had a similar situation when he got hired at NWA but I think the cause was more due to shear incompetence than selfishness.

The reassigning at XJT made my blood boil. Unfortunately some guys were so hard up for cash they virtually begged for it. One CA even commented to me that he liked the rampant reassignments because, "at least we know they need us." Argh...
 
I've only gotten reassigned HERE once, and boooooooy I was pissed. Completely legal too.
 
Gonzo said:
In light of the ASA memo.

Here at Eagle we are way under staffed. By my guess 300-450 pilots under staffed and we might loss 300+ more to AA this year. We are having to CX flights because a lack of crews. Word is we are averaging over 100 JMs a day.
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Things were going reasonably well where I'm at until about a month ago.

4% were canceled yesterday and that's all because of lack of crew.

In the last few weeks it has become a regular occurrence for the following day's reserves to be completely used up on that day's schedule, before the preceding day is even over, even with no large weather events at the hubs.

Totally absurd.

The joke is on mainline though, for outsourcing it all and thinking things would just work themselves out. Even more absurd.
 
Nick said:
The joke is on mainline though, for outsourcing it all and thinking things would just work themselves out. Even more absurd.
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Yup. Mainline Company says, "Operate your airline, for us, at a 28% reduction in what we had been paying you for the past five years. Deal?" Regional Company leadership reassuringly answers, "Why of course!"

Well well well...

Mainline wants things cheap, and this is what they get. Good job folks.

But yeah...Management sends out a memo to ASA pilots saying that they need us to pull together to keep the operation going. And yet, in numerous replies...Management says "we are correctly staffed for the flying we are doing," its just those guys exercising the commuter clause, staying away from work when not feeling well, and vacation bidding that seems to be stretching the staffing solution thin.

Well..all 1400 (and change) active pilots at ASA know the reality. If we were properly staffed, there would be now 200% opentime pick up offerings. If we were properly staffed, our leadership would not have sent out such a ridiculous memo at 10:08 Tuesday night asking for us to band together. If we were properly staffed, we wouldn't have to worry about folks staying home when feeling ill, or having to offer 200% premium pay.

So no, ASA is significantly UNDERSTAFFED. I'll go with a conservative figure of at least 200 pilots understaffed, yet we can't hire because we have been blowing through pilot payroll costs since February (or so that's what our leadership tells me).
 
Yeah, when I was at XJT it was, well, significantly overstaffed. Hence why I went with the 40 airplanes they parked. :)

Cape Air...that was just ridiculous. Hanging by a thread, and the industry hadn't really started moving forward as it is now. Not sure how they're making that all work out these days. When I was there, it was two pilots and two airplanes running between two airports. If someone called in sick or an aircraft went down for maintenance, the other guy had to round-robin between all three airports to keep the operation from collapsing. Of course, all the passengers still missed their connections.
 
We at AWAC were so badly staffed it wasn't even funny. Once airways had enough of us and our cancelling of so many flights everyday due to Maint and crews, they yanked a line of flying from us. Since then...we have gotten to see what SEMI properly staffed looks like. It's amazing. Reserves not being used as much...drop requests being approved...18 days off...no junior manning. Life's goood. As soon as we get our line of flying back though, we will be back in the pot. Cherish it while it lasts.
 
mojo6911 said:
Is it cheaper to cancel flights than it is to bump salaries to attract more pilots?
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That's not even the issue. There are applicants, and for that matter, applicants that are well qualified and a good fit for the company. The company simply refuses to hire them.

Right now we're running around 40 a month through training. If the company lets them, training department can ramrod 80-100 through training at any one time, and do 40-50 upgrades per month.

It's simply a matter of screaming that we're hosed because of staffing out of one side of their mouth, and then telling us that they don't need to hire any more out of the other side.

Oh and to add to all that, we've got two separate airlines, and two separate training departments. It's all pretty awesome.
 
At XJT they would just grab anyone who was sitting ARC go to the gate to do the captain reassigning. One skipper was in the middle of doing an OE for a new FO.
 
SeanD said:
At XJT they would just grab anyone who was sitting ARC go to the gate to do the captain reassigning. One skipper was in the middle of doing an OE for a new FO.
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They'd grab any FA.

The pilots would tell Charles what and where he could shove it.
 
SeanD said:
At XJT they would just grab anyone who was sitting ARC go to the gate to do the captain reassigning. One skipper was in the middle of doing an OE for a new FO.
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I became an expert at bobbing and weaving at XJT. Sometime over beers I'll tell the story of how a gate agent held my bag hostage.
 
The title should read "how well is your regional staffed" but I digress, continue on with a butchered language that looks like English.
 
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