Comair Calling

[D+$]

hey interviewed in june, got offered a oct 4th class. sweet....

 

[chperplt]

The latest vacancy bid showed 30 CRJ FO slots.. Hopefully the calls will keeping coming!

 

[On Your Six]

What's the estimated upgrade time from FO to Captain?

 

[Caveman]

Six,

There's an open vacancy bid right now. It calls for 3 more 70 seat CA and 6 more 50 seat CA. My guess is that the 70 will go very senior (about 10 years) and all will come from the left seat of the 50.

The new 50 seat CA will probably be around 5 years seniority. There are about 175-200 FO's that are more senior than the most junior CA. At least 125-150 of them are eager to upgrade. The other 50 or so are those career FO's that every airline has. They have no need or desire to upgrade. I'm guessing that the most senior FO that actually wants to upgrade has in the neighborhood of 5-5 1/2 years seniority.

 

[FurloughedAgain]

Although those who are presently upgrading have been here 5-6 years I cant imagine (barring an aircraft order) that upgrade will be that quickly for folks hired today.

With 1800 or so pilots on hand, the company would still need to either buy 90 airplanes, or for roughly 800-900 people to leave (or some combination of the two) for someone to switch seats.

With most of the attrition now coming from the right seat, I would be surprised to see anyone who was hired in 2003 or later upgrade faster than ten years.

I was hired in late 2002 and have moved up a total of 39 numbers. Fortunately they hired a few hundred after my class (ya'll got me off reserve! Thanks!) but the overall movement has been less than 2%.

These posts that ask "how long to upgrade at XYZ?" offer no real information. Since they are dependant upon aircraft purchases and attrition the information we have today is virtually worthless.

In 1999 I was told that my upgrade time at US Airways would be 5 years. (looking at calendar...) I think they were wrong.

 

[KATL8R26L]

well

thats not bad after 5 months a way , things are moving.

 

[KATL8R26L]

well

Lets see i have been gone since feb o4. It is good the hear that things are moving.

 

[Mookie]

How many planes do you'se guys have at Comair? Just wondering what the staffing per plane is. we're running at about 4.3 per plane and no one can get any time off right now. do you guys have a minimum reserve component that is in your contract? lastly, how do you all like the preferential bidding system?

thanks for the info.

thanks
Mookie

 

[DDpaysoff]

How many planes do you'se guys have at Comair? Just wondering what the staffing per plane is. we're running at about 4.3 per plane and no one can get any time off right now. do you guys have a minimum reserve component that is in your contract? lastly, how do you all like the preferential bidding system?


If you do the math with both equipment types there is about 11.5 pilots per a/c. However, this includes managment, people on leave etc. As far as active pilots planning said 10.5 pilots. But, they said this over two years ago when the airline was very different. I would imagine with all the off-base flying those numbers may have increased. If you are talking about drops or sitting reserve at home and not getting called, fughget about it. As far as PBS, well if there were hard lines, junior line holders would have to bid for about 400-500 lines. The system was designed for something like 2,000-3,000 block hours not 30,000. Like everything it could be better, could be worse. If Delta gives Comair a long term commitment somewhere and another base opened up bidding would improve. This last bid for 30 new-hires would take care of the last three a/c that are scheduled for delivery. If there is another bid of signifigant size, then that would be spooling up for something.