PSA New Hire FO Classes Suspended

Simple math. At a staffing level of 11 pilots per plane, times 150 planes, you need 1650 pilots just to provide flight crews to keep the fleet in the air. Add in about 150-200 pilots scattered throughout the company in training positions and other positions that don't regularly fly the line.

Currently there are probably about 1300 pilots total, including the 150-200 non-regulars. So lets say there are 1150 line pilots. They still need to hire about 500 pilots, just to get to 1650 line pilots. About half those 1650 pilots will need to be captains. Lets say 800 captains. Right now there are probably 400-500 captains.

Every month right now about 10 captains minimum leave the company one way or another. So every year they will need to replace around 120 captains even after the expansion is done and the last plane arrives on property. Just for normal attrition after the expansion is over. So between now and the end of the expansion, they will need 300 more captains plus about 240 more captains to cover attrition over the next two years of expansion. Pretty much everyone on property now will have a chance to upgrade within the next two years. For the next 120 FOs hired, it will be three years maybe since by then you will be on a 120 captains out the top, 120 FOs in at the bottom stable turnover situation. For the next 120 after that, four years maybe. Since FO hiring is paused temporarily, you've got a little time to think about it. I wouldn't wait too long though. By the end of this year I think a new hire will be looking at increasing upgrade times.

That's assuming they maintain staffing for a 150 plane fleet and nothing happens to negatively affect the industry, causing layoffs or fleet shrinkage. It's also assuming that nothing happens to increase the rate of pilots leaving for other jobs.

It's also not accounting for direct entry captains or other prior 121 fast upgrades, as well as folks who choose to delay upgrade. There will be some effects on upgrade time from that but not a huge effect I would imagine.
 
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I'm thinking they need to hire about 40 a month for the next year and a half, then drop to hiring 10-15 a month after that. Just guestimating.
 
I applied back in May, but wasn't able to get into a CTP course until later this month. Hopefully I can interview soon after knocking this out, and at that point just await a class date..
 
I think upgrades will stay under 2 years for the foreseeable future, even for new FOs hired into next year. We are losing 10/month now off the top. As the years go by attrition will naturally increase.

We are losing 48/year to AA via our SSP, and probably another 50 or 60 to other carriers. And that's just CAs. We have plenty of FO attrition as well... An FO in my class that doesn't even have their 1,000 121 SIC has an offer to interview with an LCC carrier. One left to go back to flying King Airs in the sand box for increased wages. And another left to go fly cargo heavies somewhere. I'd say total attrition right now is about 150 or so p/year and increasing.
 
chrisreedrules said:
I think upgrades will stay under 2 years for the foreseeable future, even for new FOs hired into next year. We are losing 10/month now off the top. As the years go by attrition will naturally increase.

We are losing 48/year to AA via our SSP, and probably another 50 or 60 to other carriers. And that's just CAs. We have plenty of FO attrition as well... An FO in my class that doesn't even have their 1,000 121 SIC has an offer to interview with an LCC carrier. One left to go back to flying King Airs in the sand box for increased wages. And another left to go fly cargo heavies somewhere. I'd say total attrition right now is about 150 or so p/year and increasing.
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Chris I think I passed you in the crew room the other day. I made a b line to the microwave to heat up lunch, but I think you were standing in the hall talking. We will have to meet up in the airport when I get back from Dayton.
 
@chrisreedrules @badtransam97

I'm still thinking about turnover.

I said "1150 line pilots" in my post above. That's an estimate, including the FO trainees currently on property. So they still need to hire about 500 pilots to staff the expansion, then 200-250 more over the next two years to cover attrition.

I'm still waiting on IOE, and I am number 980 on the list, with those apparent 150-200 non-line pilots counted ahead of me in that seniority list. So really, there are only around 800 pilots on the list ahead of me that have an effect on my progression, and half of them are already captains. 100 or more of those will leave in the next year or so, 100 the next. We need to upgrade 15 or more FOs per month to have enough captains for the expansion. 15 x 12 = 180 new captains per year, plus 100 to cover attrition, = 280 new captains needed per year. That's 560 minimum needed over the next two years of growth.

So I estimate that I am somewhere around line pilot number 800 (effectively) and line FO number 400 (effectively). We will need to maintain around 800 captains eventually. That means the next 160 + 200 (for attrition) or so folks behind me are more or less "guaranteed" (if there is such a thing) a chance to upgrade within two years (probably less than that). Possibly slightly more pilots than that. This is because they will have a seniority number to put them in the top 800 (captain-ish seniority) or so of 1650 line pilots within that time. After two years, we will be in that steady-state attrition phase, with equal numbers hired to replace folks that move on. So the number of upgrades might slow down then.

Still, upgrades might be less than two years for a while even then, we just will slow our hiring to match the attrition to better jobs which will hopefully continue. And who knows how much things will change in the next two years as movement to higher jobs hopefully accelerates.

A hitch in this would be excessive DEC hiring, which I don't think there will be. The need for DECs will hopefully go away, as more FOs should start upgrading soon as they reach their mins and/or the seniority they want.

Bottom line, I think if someone wants a solid chance at less than a two year upgrade at PSA, given where our numbers are now, they better be in the next couple hundred hired. So they'd better be hired by the end of this year, since FO hiring should restart in September. September to December is four months, times 50 hires per month, equals 200 pilots that should be hired by the end of the year. Anything past then and upgrade times may start to increase. Three year upgrades are not bad historically, but if it causes a person to miss getting hired to your career job because the delay caused you to ultimately miss the other wave down the road, then it would not be good.

Get in, get out, quit mucking about. Yo-ho yo-ho yo-ho!
 
Beefy McGee said:
@chrisreedrules @badtransam97

I'm still thinking about turnover.

I said "1150 line pilots" in my post above. That's an estimate, including the FO trainees currently on property. So they still need to hire about 500 pilots to staff the expansion, then 200-250 more over the next two years to cover attrition.

I'm still waiting on IOE, and I am number 980 on the list, with those apparent 150-200 non-line pilots counted ahead of me in that seniority list. So really, there are only around 800 pilots on the list ahead of me that have an effect on my progression, and half of them are already captains. 100 or more of those will leave in the next year or so, 100 the next. We need to upgrade 15 or more FOs per month to have enough captains for the expansion. 15 x 12 = 180 new captains per year, plus 100 to cover attrition, = 280 new captains needed per year. That's 560 minimum needed over the next two years of growth.

So I estimate that I am somewhere around line pilot number 800 (effectively) and line FO number 400 (effectively). We will need to maintain around 800 captains eventually. That means the next 160 + 200 (for attrition) or so folks behind me are more or less "guaranteed" (if there is such a thing) a chance to upgrade within two years (probably less than that). Possibly slightly more pilots than that. This is because they will have a seniority number to put them in the top 800 (captain-ish seniority) or so of 1650 line pilots within that time. After two years, we will be in that steady-state attrition phase, with equal numbers hired to replace folks that move on. So the number of upgrades might slow down then.

Still, upgrades might be less than two years for a while even then, we just will slow our hiring to match the attrition to better jobs which will hopefully continue. And who knows how much things will change in the next two years as movement to higher jobs hopefully accelerates.

A hitch in this would be excessive DEC hiring, which I don't think there will be. The need for DECs will hopefully go away, as more FOs should start upgrading soon as they reach their mins and/or the seniority they want.

Bottom line, I think if someone wants a solid chance at less than a two year upgrade at PSA, given where our numbers are now, they better be in the next couple hundred hired. So they'd better be hired by the end of this year, since FO hiring should restart in September. September to December is four months, times 50 hires per month, equals 200 pilots that should be hired by the end of the year. Anything past then and upgrade times may start to increase. Three year upgrades are not bad historically, but if it causes a person to miss getting hired to your career job because the delay caused you to ultimately miss the other wave down the road, then it would not be good.

Get in, get out, quit mucking about. Yo-ho yo-ho yo-ho!
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I know this all sounds great, but I really don't see how it is safely sustainable, especially when accounting for normal attrition. As someone pointed out in another thread we are already starting to see pilots being hired with baggage that would have disqualified them only a year ago. I would not be surprised to see this pressure transfer to training departments to let people slide through who might not have in the past.
 
I take my CTP course in a couple weeks. I was told I couldn't interview until I had passed the written, so hopefully I'll hear back soon after taking the course. I am unsure how many of any, are in a "pool" awaiting classes to start back. There may be enough in there to put me below that 200 mark??
I plan to be ready soon as they call me for class, so hopefully I won't be behind the curve on the upgrade stuff, but honestly, like I said earlier, if I can get the time there to move on to a fractional, I'm not too worried about making captain. On the other hand, if my plan backfires, and I can't get to a fractional within a coue years from now, I may be a little more concerned with upgrading, and that is why I don't want to drag my feet on this deal.
Ultimately, my plan is if all goes to hell with this airplane stuff, I will go back to flying HEMS or head to the gulf....that's the backup "plan" anyways lol
 
Blackhawk said:
I know this all sounds great, but I really don't see how it is safely sustainable, especially when accounting for normal attrition. As someone pointed out in another thread we are already starting to see pilots being hired with baggage that would have disqualified them only a year ago. I would not be surprised to see this pressure transfer to training departments to let people slide through who might not have in the past.
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Yeah, I hear you. My comments are only related to the "is it too late to go to PSA" questions, not the long term situation in the industry. Though for the upgrade train to keep running, they will have to find a way to keep finding FOs.
 
chrisreedrules said:
I'm a fat guy with a mustache...
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Great, now there's TWO of us.

1045.gif
 
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