The new airline thread

[Standby]

I’ve also had buddies with above average interpersonal/networking skills go sling gear as SIC at no cost on the weekends.

[brabus]

I would give it a shot. You’re on full time orders and really that’s their intent - capture people who are full time before they go part time/get out and are a free agent to their competitors. I would think the minutia of splitting hairs WRT type of T10/T32 orders is not something they care about.

[AirGuardianC141747]

Springer had mentioned earlier at some point he hated DH’s and when it’s tight in the back somewhere amongst the cattle especially on long haul I definitely agree. Sometimes I prefer whale riding especially on our -8s and navigating around the security zones, customs/immigration garbage. On the other hand these past two months it has been a nice break being up front Delta One from Korea to Detroit on their A350 as they were both home runs literally (sent home early as my scheduled flights to operate were significantly delayed). 13 hours is 13 hours no doubt, but chilling on a ride home accumulating points on company time isn’t half bad. Service and comfort wasn’t half bad either, but still half as good as KAL, JAL, ANA, QF, SQ, etc. and then there’s EK and QR which not many come close too but oil brings you an unfair advantage as well as strict catering and attendant standards. 
 

*Chilling with the Delta crew up front looking at all the wizardry of the A350 before departure the Capt was curious if we were allowed to beverage up on our DH’s… Out of uniform I thought it was a no brainer, but he stated they were no longer allowed when moving on their metal. I contemplated that there might have been an unruly crew member at some point, but he mentioned that because multiple crew members on the same flight had drank all the libations thereby leaving the customers with zero balance that benefit was scratched. Is this true…?

[SocialD]

6 hours ago, AirGuardianC141747 said:

*Chilling with the Delta crew up front looking at all the wizardry of the A350 before departure the Capt was curious if we were allowed to beverage up on our DH’s… Out of uniform I thought it was a no brainer, but he stated they were no longer allowed when moving on their metal. I contemplated that there might have been an unruly crew member at some point, but he mentioned that because multiple crew members on the same flight had drank all the libations thereby leaving the customers with zero balance that benefit was scratched. Is this true…?

 

 

Listen, in my defense, the flight attendants poured them strong and often on that flight.  

 

But in all seriousness, like so many urban legends, I bet this story is 0.69% true.  There are two reasons we're not allowed to drink on a DH anymore.  One is they want the have the ability to reroute you into a flying leg (not legal per our PWA anymore) and they want to save money.  Everything else is bullshit.  

 

[brabus]

Wade Boggs got nothing on SocialD!

[HeloDude]

5 minutes ago, brabus said:

Wade Boggs got nothing on SocialD!

RIP

[disgruntledemployee]

Once saw a DHer get a big bottle of red and and cup and leave the empty in the seat back pocket.

[ClearedHot]

Four more and he is an Ace.

[HuggyU2]

[SocialD]

Out there doing the lords work, killing RJ's!

[Lord Ratner]

AA now expecting to halt hiring for the next 18 months. 1300 pilot surplus, with plans to look into furloughs if that number hits 1,500. This is from the chief pilots behind closed doors, so take it with a grain of salt.

 

But something has them spooked.

[SocialD]

4 minutes ago, Lord Ratner said:

AA now expecting to halt hiring for the next 18 months. 1300 pilot surplus, with plans to look into furloughs if that number hits 1,500. This is from the chief pilots behind closed doors, so take it with a grain of salt.

 

But something has them spooked.

 

Look at my seniority advancement from when I was at AAL, it looks like you'd retire nearly 1,500 over the next two years.  I'm sure covid retirements have skewed that number, but his list was from before the USAir integration, so I'd think that would offset that a bit.  Seems like attrition and lower line values could solve most of that.  Furloughs are expensive, must be something big/long term that is spooking them.  

 

[Lord Ratner]

16 minutes ago, SocialD said:

 

Look at my seniority advancement from when I was at AAL, it looks like you'd retire nearly 1,500 over the next two years.  I'm sure covid retirements have skewed that number, but his list was from before the USAir integration, so I'd think that would offset that a bit.  Seems like attrition and lower line values could solve most of that.  Furloughs are expensive, must be something big/long term that is spooking them.  

 

I didn't know if "furlough" to them includes the newly contractual "blank lines" that made furloughing a *lot* less expensive. 

Like I said, grain of salt, but our latest vacancy bid for March '25 (what we use to bid for upgrades and fleet changes) had a paltry number of upgrades. 

 

I think people forget how small the changes in passenger volume need to be to have large effects on pilot manning. And anyone who thinks Boeing is getting their shit together any time soon hasn't been paying attention.

[Clark Griswold]

AA now expecting to halt hiring for the next 18 months. 1300 pilot surplus, with plans to look into furloughs if that number hits 1,500. This is from the chief pilots behind closed doors, so take it with a grain of salt.
 
But something has them spooked.

They think she’s gonna win


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[StoleIt]

4 hours ago, Lord Ratner said:

AA now expecting to halt hiring for the next 18 months. 1300 pilot surplus, with plans to look into furloughs if that number hits 1,500. This is from the chief pilots behind closed doors, so take it with a grain of salt.

 

But something has them spooked.

Interesting, a buddy of mine who has a CJO from early summer just heard back from the hiring board and they are getting new paperwork for their back ground checks, etc with word that indoc will be at the beginning of the New Year.

Edited September 11 by StoleIt

[Lord Ratner]

4 minutes ago, StoleIt said:

Interesting, a buddy of mine who has a CJO from early summer just heard back from the hiring board and they are getting new paperwork for their back ground checks, etc with word that indoc will be at the beginning of the New Year

And at this company, I would give either one equal weight. I know they were still doing diversity interviews, but I think part of the problem here is that none of these companies want to announce anything like a hiring freeze officially, since it would have implications for the share price. And the only thing anybody in management is interested in at these companies is the share price. Absolutely zero people give a shit about the functioning of the airlines operationally. 

 

 

[Swizzle]

20 hours ago, Lord Ratner said:

// And the only thing anybody in management is interested in at these companies is the share price. //

Bet they care about their mileage and point, reduced-financial-liability, cash-cow programs...

"US carriers that partner with credit cards to offer points or miles often get paid each time a customer uses one of these cards, which generates billions in revenue."

https://www.businessinsider.com/congress-billcredit-card-fees-kill-flier-miles-united-scott-kirby-2023-10

 

[HuggyU2]

Durbin. Ugh. 

[DirkDiggler]

Probably not great news for airline hiring.

 

https://apple.news/Aemtc9tftRHi2bhpy40ZTpA

[HuggyU2]

Summary?  I don't use that app. 

[SurelySerious]

Summary?  I don't use that app. 

Machinists who work on 737 line walk out.

[SocialD]

They ain't delivering shit right now anyway.  I suppose this will get fixed pretty quick though.  

[HeloDude]

On 9/11/2024 at 2:16 PM, Lord Ratner said:

AA now expecting to halt hiring for the next 18 months. 1300 pilot surplus, with plans to look into furloughs if that number hits 1,500. This is from the chief pilots behind closed doors, so take it with a grain of salt.

 

But something has them spooked.

This was posted right after the LPA conference this past weekend—not saying you’re wrong, but publicly, AA is saying their plan is to hire 2K next year.

[Lord Ratner]

9 hours ago, HeloDude said:

This was posted right after the LPA conference this past weekend—not saying you’re wrong, but publicly, AA is saying their plan is to hire 2K next year.

Yup. We are getting the same mixed messaging on our side too. Hiring 2,000 next year on all the official sites, but every chief pilot behind closed (cockpit) doors says 2025 at the current overage.

 

Ask yourself why you would stop hiring in its entirety if you are planning to start hiring at the fastest pace possible in just 3 months. Our training center is not even remotely close to capacity. It looks like a ghost town compared to a year ago. At 2000 new hires per year, the training pipeline is completely slammed and pilots go non-current regularly due to a lack of slots for if someone calls out sick, or any other minor deviation. 

 

This is the airlines. There's almost never a time that you can trust what they say over what they do. I hope I'm wrong, but even for September (Feb and Sept are always the slowest months) we are sllooowww. Even rain on DFW hasn't been enough to shake the schedule. Usually it's a calamity. And Boeing isn't getting airplanes to anybody anytime soon.

[HeloDude]

1 hour ago, Lord Ratner said:

Yup. We are getting the same mixed messaging on our side too. Hiring 2,000 next year on all the official sites, but every chief pilot behind closed (cockpit) doors says 2025 at the current overage.

Not sure what you mean by “2025 at the current overage”—is this when the CPs are saying hiring will pick up, because 2025 is right around the corner?

Delta just started another Indoc class last week, so they haven’t entirely stopped and they’re still saying they’ll bring on another 1Kish next year, and United is bragging about how many they plan on hiring in the next few years as well.  While I don’t disagree that anything significant in the future can change these numbers, it will be obvious to see by early next year which way things will go.  

So just for fun, what do you think will happen?  While m gut tells me that 2K is quite a bit for AA next year, I’m sure it will be close to 500-1000.