Starscream
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2006
- Posts
- 115
In recent months, even I (coming up on 3 years AE FO) had thought about jumping ship for CHQ (until I read that their LGA base took 2 years to hold as an FO!), but the recent events coming to light about CHQ management threatening to cancel vacation or cancel flying made me raise my eyebrows, I must say.
What does the future hold for AE? Who knows. 7+ year upgrades? I can assure you (barring another 9/11 type event, of course) that it won't be that long. With every flowback gone, the junior CA at Eagle would be a May 01 hire. Still almost 6 years, yes, but then with that 28 month hiring freeze (started of course on 9/3/01), January 2004 hires would be probably be upgrading in a few months.
There are a lot of variables that have yet to be determined in the next year, with the flowthrus being perhaps the biggest wildcard. We've got 400 of them with AA numbers, and the company is just lusting for them to leave, even though many (I wouldn't even say most, probably half) of those flowthrus don't want to go. APA doesn't want them to flow, ALPA and AMR do. So who knows. I wouldn't be surprised if AA has some kind of preferential hiring in place for Eagle pilots (although I woudn't count on it either), because AMR wants guys off of 18 year pay here, whatever it takes. If most of them were allowed to go, or if a deal were worked out that would allow non-numbered flowthrus to go in place of a numbered flowthru, then upgrade times would probably drop to under 3 years. Will any of that happen? We'll have to wait and see I guess.
And then there's the Captain Qualified FO program. This also has the potential to lower upgrade times even further, because many of the most senior jet FO's will bid the program and lock themselves into the jet, causing ATR/SF3 CA to go more junior. This is basically the company paying FO's an extra $10 an hour to qaulify as CA before they could actually hold the seat, and then get the extra pay until they could hold CA on the aircraft, at which time they just switch seats the next month. That's it. As it is, we have a lot of guys who could hold ATR/SF3 CA but don't bid it because of QOL/pay issues. They just rather wait till they can hold EMJ CA.
AA's new contract could also radically alter the direction of AE's path.
My guess for the near future (next 1 to 2 years): 4 year upgrade to the turboprop, 5 1/2 to 6 years to the jet. No, it's not as good as many other places, but I've discovered since I've been here that unless you've got that magic crystal ball...............you don't know what's gonna happen.........
What does the future hold for AE? Who knows. 7+ year upgrades? I can assure you (barring another 9/11 type event, of course) that it won't be that long. With every flowback gone, the junior CA at Eagle would be a May 01 hire. Still almost 6 years, yes, but then with that 28 month hiring freeze (started of course on 9/3/01), January 2004 hires would be probably be upgrading in a few months.
There are a lot of variables that have yet to be determined in the next year, with the flowthrus being perhaps the biggest wildcard. We've got 400 of them with AA numbers, and the company is just lusting for them to leave, even though many (I wouldn't even say most, probably half) of those flowthrus don't want to go. APA doesn't want them to flow, ALPA and AMR do. So who knows. I wouldn't be surprised if AA has some kind of preferential hiring in place for Eagle pilots (although I woudn't count on it either), because AMR wants guys off of 18 year pay here, whatever it takes. If most of them were allowed to go, or if a deal were worked out that would allow non-numbered flowthrus to go in place of a numbered flowthru, then upgrade times would probably drop to under 3 years. Will any of that happen? We'll have to wait and see I guess.
And then there's the Captain Qualified FO program. This also has the potential to lower upgrade times even further, because many of the most senior jet FO's will bid the program and lock themselves into the jet, causing ATR/SF3 CA to go more junior. This is basically the company paying FO's an extra $10 an hour to qaulify as CA before they could actually hold the seat, and then get the extra pay until they could hold CA on the aircraft, at which time they just switch seats the next month. That's it. As it is, we have a lot of guys who could hold ATR/SF3 CA but don't bid it because of QOL/pay issues. They just rather wait till they can hold EMJ CA.
AA's new contract could also radically alter the direction of AE's path.
My guess for the near future (next 1 to 2 years): 4 year upgrade to the turboprop, 5 1/2 to 6 years to the jet. No, it's not as good as many other places, but I've discovered since I've been here that unless you've got that magic crystal ball...............you don't know what's gonna happen.........