PNCL cxl flights: lack of crews?

[Flyer1015]

http://www.mininggazette.com/stories/articles.asp?articleID=6135


"In an e-mail about the situation, Pinnacle spokesman Phil Reed wrote the problem was caused by a personnel shortage.

“Pinnacle did experience a spike in pilot attrition in February,” Reed wrote. “We pre-canceled some flying and rebooked customers in advance. To compensate for this loss, we enhanced our training productivity and will quickly return to schedule. The loss appears to be the result of hiring by major airlines.”"


Anyone know what spike in pilot attrition happened during February? Still leaving at a rate of one pilot/day?

 

[Lear70]

They're not going to be able to fix this until the end of the summer.

Even if they ramp up F/O training NOW, you have to get those guys online.

Problem is, a lot of the personnel they are losing are Check Airmen, thus impacting their ability to get people online.

They could train new Checks, but that would take a month as well.

Either way you cut it, by the time they get enough Check Airmen trained and up to speed, get enough F/O's in the door, then upgrade enough CA's without robbing from the F/O ranks, PLUS the attrition that is going on, it'll be at least 6 months down the road.

What was that song again? "It's a cruel, cruel summer. Now you're gone. Leaving me here on my own..."

Pre-canceling flights at 50% pay absolutely SUCKS. Hope they find a way to fix this.

Like a previous poster said on another thread: pay is only part of the equation, and MIGHT get F/O's in the door, but won't keep CA's from bailing. They'd have to increase the number of days off, more severely limit J.A.'s and EXT's, increase the 401k dramatically, as well as bump the pay by 40-50% to retain their CA's, and that's just not happening.

Best of luck, boys & girls!

 

[SEVEN]

Pinnacle's doors will be closed by Sept. 1st.
YPF?

 

[slackass]

Similar story at every other Regional.

 

[Flyer1015]

They're not going to be able to fix this until the end of the summer.

Even if they ramp up F/O training NOW, you have to get those guys online.

Problem is, a lot of the personnel they are losing are Check Airmen, thus impacting their ability to get people online.

They could train new Checks, but that would take a month as well.

Either way you cut it, by the time they get enough Check Airmen trained and up to speed, get enough F/O's in the door, then upgrade enough CA's without robbing from the F/O ranks, PLUS the attrition that is going on, it'll be at least 6 months down the road.

What was that song again? "It's a cruel, cruel summer. Now you're gone. Leaving me here on my own..."

Pre-canceling flights at 50% pay absolutely SUCKS. Hope they find a way to fix this.

Like a previous poster said on another thread: pay is only part of the equation, and MIGHT get F/O's in the door, but won't keep CA's from bailing. They'd have to increase the number of days off, more severely limit J.A.'s and EXT's, increase the 401k dramatically, as well as bump the pay by 40-50% to retain their CA's, and that's just not happening.

Best of luck, boys & girls!

What about the latest rumors of a contract about to be settled? If that's true, and there is signif. pay and QOL increases for F/Os (and Capts), then there might be less attrition?

 

[SEVEN]

What about the latest rumors of a contract about to be settled? If that's true, and there is signif. pay and QOL increases for F/Os (and Capts), then there might be less attrition?

The "new" contract will still be sub-par at best and in line with the worst contracts in the industry.

 

[Lear70]

What about the latest rumors of a contract about to be settled? If that's true, and there is signif. pay and QOL increases for F/Os (and Capts), then there might be less attrition?

You might quit losing F/O's to lateral moves, so long as upgrades stay in a 1-2 year time frame, but you won't be able to keep the CA's from leaving to the Majors or Netjets which is where it appears most of them are going.

Even if there was a 20% raise for CA's, going to SWA, FDX, or UPS as well as NetJets beats that by year 2.

Going to CAL, DAL, and JBLU beats those rates by year 5.

AAI does the minute you upgrade which is currently running about 3-4 years and will be up to 5-6 for anyone hired this year, certainly by year 7 you're in the left seat making about $120 an hour. I sincerely doubt PCL will EVER come close to that.

And all of those carriers have a SIGNIFICANT improvement in retirement, days off, and overall QOL. I can't even BEGIN to compare my life here to Pinnacle. It was like 5 years of indentured servitude there. Here I'm averaging 18 days off on about 80 hours of credit and have no urge to work more until it pays a lot more.

The CA's will still be heading out the door at PCL in DROVES. Even more so as other majors start spooling up their hiring processes as well.

No contract is going to fix that. At least, not a contract you'll see at PCL. Staffing will become a problem for the next 2-3 years just like it was in 97-01 when they were hiring street CA's 'cause all the majors were sucking up the qualified regional CA's and PCL has to pick up low-time CFI's and Wunderkids under 1,000 hours which take 3-4 years to upgrade.

 

[Lear70]

The "new" contract will still be sub-par at best and in line with the worst contracts in the industry.

It'll probably be industry average, more than likely about a 20% increase in wages with an extra couple of percent in the 401(k), an extra day off for lineholders and reserves, with some of the LOA language become permanent, and the Scheduling section fixed with 100% cancellation pay.

Doubt it will be much more than that, which brings them solidly to the middle of the regional pack again like they were when the last contract was signed.

It'll pass by a 70-80% margin, due to the high number of people hired in the last 2-3 years that have just upgraded or are about to and don't want to rock the boat.

Just my educated guess...

 

[SEVEN]

It'll probably be industry average, more than likely about a 20% increase in wages with an extra couple of percent in the 401(k), an extra day off for lineholders and reserves, with some of the LOA language become permanent, and the Scheduling section fixed with 100% cancellation pay.

Doubt it will be much more than that, which brings them solidly to the middle of the regional pack again like they were when the last contract was signed.

It'll pass by a 70-80% margin, due to the high number of people hired in the last 2-3 years that have just upgraded or are about to and don't want to rock the boat.

Just my educated guess...

For the 9E guys I hope you're right. They need to get this thing over with already!

 

[Lear70]

The biggest single obstacle, currently (at least IMHO), is Scope.

They've just seen a huge chunk of VERY NICE turboprops that any number of F/O's would be MORE than happy to upgrade into go to another company.

That's gonna be the kicker, and I have no CLUE how that one's gonna go. Could go either way... I haven't been in touch with the current MEC enough to know if that's going to be a HARD AND FAST sticking point or not (which, if I was still employed there, would be my FIRST question on a new contract).

 

[Flyer1015]

Exactly, that was my next question: scope. What good are pay/QOL increases, if there is no scope protecting the CRJ PNCL pilots?

 

[berkss]

The MEC says that they wont budge an inch on the scope section, but we will see how the company deals with that.

I agree as well that the scope will be one of the only things that could cause the negotiations trouble. And it is the most important part

 

[Smarta$$]

The "new" contract will still be sub-par at best and in line with the worst contracts in the industry.

How do you know? Nothing you ever say comes true. Go away. Our new agreement will be better than yours. Period.

 

[i fly boxes]

The "new" contract will still be sub-par at best and in line with the worst contracts in the industry.

you are going to be suprised, our contract will be better than industry average. You know, all you do is bash pinnacle, but soon, the tides are going to turn, and you are going to have to defend all these 500 hour people you guys are going to be putting in the 900 for 22.15.

 

[i fly boxes]

They're not going to be able to fix this until the end of the summer.

Even if they ramp up F/O training NOW, you have to get those guys online.

Problem is, a lot of the personnel they are losing are Check Airmen, thus impacting their ability to get people online.

They could train new Checks, but that would take a month as well.

Either way you cut it, by the time they get enough Check Airmen trained and up to speed, get enough F/O's in the door, then upgrade enough CA's without robbing from the F/O ranks, PLUS the attrition that is going on, it'll be at least 6 months down the road.

What was that song again? "It's a cruel, cruel summer. Now you're gone. Leaving me here on my own..."

Pre-canceling flights at 50% pay absolutely SUCKS. Hope they find a way to fix this.

Like a previous poster said on another thread: pay is only part of the equation, and MIGHT get F/O's in the door, but won't keep CA's from bailing. They'd have to increase the number of days off, more severely limit J.A.'s and EXT's, increase the 401k dramatically, as well as bump the pay by 40-50% to retain their CA's, and that's just not happening.

Best of luck, boys & girls!

Are you having PInnacle withdrawls or something? I mean come on, you don't work here any more, you work at Value Jet, so please stop posting information about pinnacle that you think you may or may not know. I don't know about anyone else, but if I hated a company so much, I wouldn't continue to post my thoughts about them well after I left to go fly at another Regional

 

[Flyer1015]

Are you having PInnacle withdrawls or something? I mean come on, you don't work here any more, you work at Value Jet, so please stop posting information about pinnacle that you think you may or may not know. I don't know about anyone else, but if I hated a company so much, I wouldn't continue to post my thoughts about them well after I left to go fly at another Regional

I don't think there is anything wrong with Lear 70s posts about Pinnacle. He seems to be very helpful when it comes to answering questions about PNCL, and it certainly seems he spent quite some time at PNCL before moving on to Airtran ( you had an insult with the ValuJet comment uke: ).

 

[XJohXJ]

Most of the XJ guys are wishing you the best.

Heck, we can finally try to jump ship over to the PCL side, if you get a good contract worked out! PCL is certainly a better option than XJ if you are MSP based. Probably for DTW, as well.

Good luck PCL pilots.

 

[Smarta$$]

Most of the XJ guys are wishing you the best.

Heck, we can finally try to jump ship over to the PCL side, if you get a good contract worked out! PCL is certainly a better option than XJ if you are MSP based. Probably for DTW, as well.

Good luck PCL pilots.

Thank you for the support. We appriciate support rather than bad mouthing.

 

[ballsdeep123]

It's not like PCL doesn't have the money to pay it's employees. In 2006 it's operating margin was 15.5%. That's absolutely ridiculous that they have drawn out there contract negotiations the way that they have. Compare all that to Republic's 18.5% operating margin and hopefully the the guys over there can negotiate a better contract in the upcoming years as well. Corporate greed has become criminal the last few years.

 

[Lear70]

Are you having PInnacle withdrawls or something? I mean come on, you don't work here any more, you work at Value Jet, so please stop posting information about pinnacle that you think you may or may not know.

Dude, did you misplace your Prosac this morning or something? Jeez,,, I wasn't attacking anyone, I was stating a fact about the training pipeline at PCL.

I was there during two pilot shortages, and was simply stating the spool-up time needed to get people online. It's not a slam on the pilots. It's not a slam on the check airmen. It's a simple fact that it takes time to cover that kind of flying.

I'm just gonna ignore the Valujet comment. The original Valujet pilots make up about 10% of the seniority list here. The rest are either original AirTran or were hired after the integration.

I love it here. Sorry you're so angry about it.

I don't know about anyone else, but if I hated a company so much, I wouldn't continue to post my thoughts about them well after I left to go fly at another Regional

ROFLMAO!! Another regional?

Sorry, laughed beer out my nose. Gotta clean the laptop, so I'll just say good luck to ya'.

:smash: