express jet question

[pianoman]

Yes. How many and how fast remains to be seen.

 

[Nova]

So, why the sudden rush for hiring now? Is it because CAL is hiring and they are pulling guys from XJT?

Hasn't hiring or at least new hire classes been suspended for a few months? The hiring boom over the last 12 months started with us loosing all our flowbacks to CAL which gave us a 200+ pilot hole to fill. Then on top of that we lost almost 100 more XJT pilots to CAL who were old Flow-Through pilots. Finally, this whole time we've still be taking about 2 jets a month so we needed to staff that growth.

The lastest rumors are that we will never be losing pilots to CAL at the same rate as we've seen in the last year. Rather than 30+ a month it will be closer to 8 a month from here on out. That only gives us about 100 pilot slots to fill in a year which is next to nothing.

What we're hearing from Manpower Planning is that even they don't know what the future will hold as they are waiting to hear from CAL how many XJT pilots they plan on taking in a month. It doesn't sound very promising.

 

[SLFLYHI]

Are you serious about the ugrade time? 6-7 years? at X-jet?I heard a rumor it was like 18-24 months

No one, not even Peter Sailer can say with any reasonable accuracy. When I was hired, upgrade was less than 1 yr. I was actually holding ATR CA when 9/11 happened. I'm still an F.O. now 3.5 yrs later. There are so many variables that can change, unless you consult Ms. Cleo, you'll never know till it happens.