Any word on ACA's future plans to hire??

[citdrver]

Hello everyone,

Do any folks at ACA know if or when hiring will start for 2002? It seems that ACA is getting more work from United, is this fact or fiction? Thanks for the responses

Fly all good and stuff

 

[T1bubba]

I was hired by ACA in early August and given a class date in September. A couple weeks later in August they called and told me that it would probably be January before I could start. Of course that was pre- 9/11. I haven't heard a word from them since. No telling what their plan is now.

I was also hired at Comair. IMHO, Comair was much more professional and helpful as you go through the process. ACA seemed disorganized from the start. Comair is running interviews now, I'd try to get on there before ACA.

Good luck.

T1bubba

 

[pappy]

I faxed my resume to ACA on 12/12. Within seconds of hanging up, the phone rings and it's someone from ACA stating that they had received my resume and would file it. They were not going to do any additional hiring till March. Everything could cahnge.

pappy

 

[BlueRidger]

Here is the current situation at ACA as best I can tell. ACA plans to hire approximately 300 pilots next year. Right now the training center is running at full capacity trying to get pilots who are currently in the turboprops into the jets. The company is in the process of selecting a new interview board and that should be completed sometime soon. After they train the interviewers and there is room at the training center for new hires will hiring start again. ACA is committed to getting over 70 new CRJ's and FRJ's in the next two years so they have to hire more pilots. Most of the buildup is on the United side but Delta appears to be happy with the FRJ's right now and hopefully will want more of them in service by ACA.

 

[House_X]

How many are in the pool?

Wondering how many are in the pool waiting for class dates? I was hired late August...so I guess I'm at the bottom of the pool.

I heard they were getting a bunch Do-jets. What are the retirement plans for the 41's? Will they hang on to them or are they going all jet.

 

[canyonblue]

The J41's are going to be phased out next year on a one for one with the 328jet. We get our first 328jet in United Express colors in february and it will be flying that month. Orders for United Express are 20 CRJ's and 10 328's for 2002. ACA wants to be all jet by 2003 and I assume it will happen as our flying is very busy right now. UAL has given us some flying but that also changes on a month to month basis. Good luck to anyone coming here as with the orders and options the future is pretty bright. Also the fact that we are still making money.

 

[Cappy]

ACA will be anouncing shortly that a new charter operation will be started. I do not know the time frame but will post when I do. ACA will possibly use the CRJ-700 and FRJ's for this new operation. These aircraft are in addition to the 35 or so jets we are getting next year.

That's all I have for now, hope it helps.

BTW, you'd be happier here than at Comair. Keep checking on that resume and if you here nothing by the end of January, please let me know.

America United!

 

[flyermon]

Sorry to burst your bubble guy's, United is approaching its codeshare partners about deferring RJ orders as well as re-negotiating fee for departure contracts for 2002. When that happens, no new hiring going forward. Also, any hiring that may happen will be going to furloughed UAL mainline pilots who will not have to resign their seniority. It's called Quid Pro Quo.

 

[Marko Ramius]

Flyermon,

Do you know something that the rest of us at UAL and UAX don't know. I'll admit that we at UAL are the last to hear about what is going on at our company so I wouldn't be surprised. I learned about all the new SJ flying from listening to a Air Wis MEC recording that had the news several days before it was broken to us. The funny part was that the message said that they couldn't tell the Air Wis pilots about it until that day out of concern for the feelings for the UAL employee group who at that time still hadn't been told! Anyway, are you just speculating or have you heard something concrete saying that the UAX carriers will be hiring furloughees?

 

[House_X]

UAL/UEX doesn't have flowback.

Skywest, Air Whiskey and ACA bids on routes...they have no obligation to UAL. It would be not be financially feasible for UAX to hire furlough UAL pilots, then have them leave if recalled. It's not at all like COEX or Eagle.

Heck, UAL is trying to start the Frac thing...I'm sure UAL will have their hands full battling that one with the union.

Hopefully Santa will give us all a class date!!! Working a regular 9-5 job stinks!!!

House

 

[Marko Ramius]

It is true that UAL and UAX don't have a flowthrough/flowback program, but that's not what this discussion is about. It's about future new hire positions that are coming in the future. The reason it's an issue is because UAL has violated its scope clause jeopardizing A/C delivery and growth plans at the UAX carriers. Additionally, UAL seems to be using the same force manure to try and pressure these carriers into renegotiating their cost-plus agreements. As far as being financially feasible, those very same cost-plus agreements make that possible as well. These contracts are designed to cover the Express carriers costs, and build in a profit. Training costs are part of each UAX carrier(and any airline for that matter) crew costs and are factored into the cost-plus agreements. So in effect, UAL would be covering the cost for both training and recall, that much is very similar to CoEx and Eagle. Whether it will happen or not is pure speculation as far as I can tell right now, but it is a viable outcome for several parties involved and is cost feasible. Of course, us UAL furloughees are going to be quite surprised when our future recalls are mysteriously slower than anticipated because of the effects on the UAX carriers, but we'll leave those hypothetical complaints to posts in the very distant future!

 

[canyonblue]

ANY furloughed pilot regardless of giving up seniority or not would still have to

A.) PASS the interview.
B.) PASS the sim.
C.) PASS the RJ training at ACA.

We do not have the luxury of "keep trying till you pass" that some Majors have. The RJ training here is filled with riddles,puzzles, and hurdles that have sent MANY new hires and Captains back where they came from. IF you come to ACA and get the RJ FO spot, don't think that just because you flew a bigger plane or even the same plane (Ask any Ex-Midway pilot about this one) that it is just a matter of changing the color of your epaulets, my friend you would be in for the surprise of your life. If ACA chooses to hire any fuloughlee that, in my opinion, would be fantastic. However, BE CAREFULL WHAT YOU WISH FOR!

 

[citdrver]

Thanks for the posts everyone. This why this board is a very usefull forum for getting everyone's ideas, opinions, rumors, and/or facts out there for everyone on the outside to see.

What I have been able to grab out of these posts and many others is that the next three to six months will be very telling. Lets try to sit back and write off 2001, have a good time with the holidays, and hope the flying market steadily returns in 2002. The regionals seem to be on the verge of a large growth spurt, and it seems to me it may position the regional carriers in a large and permanent part of the airline structure.

Time will tell........I hope!

Happy Holidays Everyone.....and thanks!


Fly Safe


Citdrver

 

[Marko Ramius]

ANY furloughed pilot regardless of giving up seniority or not would still have to

A.) PASS the interview.
B.) PASS the sim.
C.) PASS the RJ training at ACA.

We do not have the luxury of "keep trying till you pass" that some Majors have. The RJ training here is filled with riddles,puzzles, and hurdles that have sent MANY new hires and Captains back where they came from. IF you come to ACA and get the RJ FO spot, don't think that just because you flew a bigger plane or even the same plane (Ask any Ex-Midway pilot about this one) that it is just a matter of changing the color of your epaulets, my friend you would be in for the surprise of your life. If ACA chooses to hire any fuloughlee that, in my opinion, would be fantastic. However, BE CAREFULL WHAT YOU WISH FOR!

Canyonblue,

What is your real point here? This is the same diatribe that SOME Eagle pilots started spewing when the threat of flowback became real. Of course, this particular situation would be new hire, not flowback, but why the thinly veiled commentary? We are all professionals here, regardless of who we worked for previously. All we want is a job, like everybody else-our management has put us all in this boat whether we asked for it or not, so why can't we be semi adult about it. The 591 UAL furloughees and the other major airline furloughees have all left corporate, nationals regionals or the military in the last 1-1 1/2. I'm sure the other airlines furloughee. Most of us have seen some form of this type of training in the past. For me personally, it was at Great Lakes. Just because a company trains to proficiency, does not mean that every pilot who works for those airlines has required extra training, or has forgotten how to fly or work hard. I'm sure some have, but that's nothing special every pilot group has its slackers whether it be a regional, major, or a military unit that's just life. If someone was on here saying, "Hey I'm a big bad major airline pilot, I can fly your little CRJ or J41 in my sleep," your comments would most certainly be warranted. However, I haven't seen any who has said that, and the people I know and talk to don't feel that way either. I don't expect an easy ride, in fact I expect the opposite. We would probably be hazed a little in training, and maybe ostracised in ops, the break room, and the cockpit. I'm sure if I pooch a landing(and you can bet I will, we all do!), that it will take about three seconds before somebody says hey that UAL guy can't fly worth a s**t! I guess the bottom line for me is, I don't feel that your ability and skills are any lesser because of where you fly or what you have done, so please don't assume ours are either.

 

[House_X]

Marko,

The scenario flyermon was describing was the situation I was refering to. I just don't see how UAL and UAX would agree on having furloughed UAL pilots flying UAX airplanes. UAL would loose big time money by covering the cost for re-training the pilots. Skywest, ACA and Air Whiskey are independent companies. ACA and Skywest work for the competition as well (Delta). The benefits of moving pilots to different aircraft and routes would be lost...I doubt that UAL would allow their pilots to fly the Do-jet for Delta Connection. The only way this could happen is if ACA was bought out by UAL...which is unlikely.

As far as the comments from canyonblue...I did hear some "stories" about the ACA RJ program...but I thought bombardier reps. went down to Florida and cleaned it up? If had a choice, I'd go with the Do-jet or J41 based on the latest "intel".

I agree with you though...we must maintain our professionalism at all costs.

House

 

[Marko Ramius]

House,

If UAL hadn't illegally violated their scope clause I would agree that neither they nor the UAX companies would ever entertain such a notion for many of the reasons that you stated. The lawyer(s) who put together the UAL contract, put in some pretty specific language about changed circumstances and the like that makes it harder for them to wiggle legally than say UsAirways. Most of the other carriers are doing minimal flying, but they are still within the minimum fleet size/ASM requirements of their respective contracts. Right now, UAL has a reprieve on this situation until Mar 1, because ALPA agreed to abey that grievance(and another separate one) until then. After that the grievance goes to court so they know that they'll have to come up with some sort of settlement or leave it to chance with a judge(unlikely that either side wants to do that). Additionally, they want concessions from the UAL pilot group. As that article correctly pointed out, it's unlikely UAL ALPA would go for illegal furloughs and illegal SJ usage, then accept pay/work rule concessions on top of that. The company is going to have to offer something in return which is probably where these rumours of reduced SJ deliveries and potential furloughee hiring are coming from. United is going to be paying for someone's training on those SJ's, the real cost to them is when recalls occur and pull UAL furloughees out of the UAX ranks. Those are future costs which usually don't matter much to our management, who tend to assume that the money will be there then(it might be) or that if it isn't it will likely be someone else problem by then. I'm not saying that's a good way to think, just that it is the way our management tends to think/act. As far as operational impact, if a deal is negotiated to send furloughees to the various carriers, they will likely try to spread the furloughees as evenly as possible across the carriers, so that in the future ideally if UAL recalled 15 pilots five would come from Skywest, five from ACA, and five from Air Wis. I doubt it would work out that smoothly, but I'm sure they'd try. Bottom line, if UAL management hadn't slipped up and created a situation that jeopordizes their SJ and concession plans, messed with the UAX carriers expansion plans, and given UAL ALPA leverage to boot, we wouldn't even be talking about these possibilities. As it is they did screw up, so here we are face to face a couple of silver spoons!

 

[Rottweiller]

The problem with sending furloughed UAL pilots to UAX won't be as easy as it sounds. Air wiskey has some 40 pilots on furlough and as plans stand at the moment they are not projected to be back on the property until mid to late summer next year. So as far as Wiskey goes a "flow back" is a non starter unless they furlough more to accomodate UAL furloughs (which I don't think could ever happen).

March will be interesting to see how the court appeal goes and I don't want to see ALPA involved pitting one group against another. Yes you are right Marko, there are many loop holes in the contracts but there are just as many ways of getting around it if the ruling goes "the wrong way". UAL could ask it's UAX carriers to drop their contracts, paint out United Express from the sides of A/C and let them start a code share system, thus bypassing scope as they are no longer UAX.

IMHO, I do not see UAX carriers being "forced" to take on UAL furloughees (no one likes to be on furlough that goes without saying), the paint schemes may change but the RJ's will still be flying putting much needed $'s into the UAL account in one form or another.

 

[Marko Ramius]

Rotweiller,

I don't know that anything is going to happen either, which is why I was asking if anybody from Express had heard anything. We at United have no clue as to what our union even wants out of these grievances, many of us feel what they want actually has nothing to do with SJ so this whole thing may really be moot. What I was trying to convey on here is the reasons why these discussions are coming up here at UAL/UAX and not at America West, UsAirways, or any other carrier that doesn't have flowback. You seem to have a pretty strong grasp on the issue(s) here. We know Air Wis has furloughed pilots, all the rumours I've heard were for new hire spots which would be after those people were rightfully recalled. In the end, it might not be the grievance that makes the UAL/UAX pilot relationship a little cozier, but Creighton needing to give up something to get concessions and this might be a worthwhile cost to him. I don't think UAX can be forced explicitly to hire us, but I have read articles that say force majeure does apply to the UAL-UAX contracts. If the company starts threatening to lower the amounts paid to express and/or telling them that they won't be seeing as much flying in the future(hiding behind our grievance of course), than they might be inclined to at least talk. The one thing that I want to reemphasize though is that this is all highly speculative and fluid, and we should all try to keep our heads in this. It's not fun to me to have to respond to posts like canyonblues, insuiating that we are bad pilots and couldn't pass CRJ training. We don't know each other at all except this board, why should we start beating up on each other everytime we percieve a threat. And yes that goes for major airline pilots who spout off rants like"some snot nosed 21 year old kid is flying my route," too.

 

[canyonblue]

Rotweiller,

It's not fun to me to have to respond to posts like canyonblues, insuiating that we are bad pilots and couldn't pass CRJ training. We don't know each other at all except this board, why should we start beating up on each other everytime we percieve a threat.

I am not insinuating that anyone is a bad pilot I'm just stating a point that as a company that is totally independant from it's mainline partner, in order for anyone to get in to ACA one would have to go the same route as any other prospective new-hire. Of course many pilots pass RJ training but this has nothing to do with what one currently flies or where one works. I'm just stating a fact that ACA's RJ training is NOTORIOUS in the industry. Like I said earlier, I would LOVE for ACA to hire Furloughed pilots FIRST as many of my friends are in that situation. I don't beat on anyone, my post was merely directed at the status of training at my airline (which some say borders on insane) compared to a more realistic environment. United should of bought ACA a long time ago and this conversation would not even be happening. But with a market cap (1B) almost twice that of UAL's, ACA is now too expensive for almost anyone to buy. Example below from somebodys post.

A Look At Market Caps
I thought it interesting to look at Market Caps (Price per share times number of shares) of various airlines. Here is what I found:

Southwest $14.6 Billion
Delta $ 3.6 Billion
American $ 3.5 Billion
SkyWest $ 1.4 Billion
Continental $ 1.4 Billion
Northwest $ 1.4 Billion
ACA $ 1.0 Billion

All the other majors on the list above that are still being traded had a market cap of $91 million (America West) to $783 million (Alaska Air).

 

[Marko Ramius]

Canyonblue,

If that's all you're saying, cool, and I agree with you. I don't know if you've followed some of the banter between AA and Eagle when it was first realized that flowback was going to be an issue. There were some barbs from a few Eagle pilots about training and the like, and some insinuations that AA pilots weren't up to the task which I thought was insulting to them. I thought your comments were the start of the same deal on this board, because of rumours that UAL furloughees might be going to Express carriers. I didn't mention it in my reply, but I have heard the rumours about the CRJ program at ACA from some of my friends over there. I am a former Great Lakes pilot, so it doesn't take much to convince me about quirky training practices! I still think most of this talk is pie in the sky rumour, however we should have some pretty good indicators soon. Now that the IAM is under the stun gun for 60 days, I expect Creighton's concession plan to come out sometime after X-mas. The rumours are that they want a 34% pay cut from the pilot group. That would entail giving back all of the Contract 2000 payraises and the snapback midterm payraises. I don't think any cut will be that big, but in either case Creighton is a crack puffer if he thinks ALPA is going to agree to a huge paycut, more illegal furloughs, and still allow UAX to fly several hundred RJ's. The main point is something has to give there. It may be something as simple as reduced SJ flying by Express with gaurantees to get 70 seaters or it could be sometype of job deal at Express as has been rumoured here. I think the relative severity of the Company's concessions requests will have a bearing on how big the impact will be on UAX.