Not Quite Dead

Well, uh, sorry bout that folks - I went NORDO for a couple months, which had readers wondering and querying whether the blog was dead. Nope, it's not dead - it's just restin'! But I think its rest is just about over.

Here's the long and short of it. You may have heard that my airline had a minor labor kurkuffle this summer when our pilots - for the first time ever - turned down a tentative agreement (65%-35%) and subsequently pretty much overturned the apple cart at our chapter of ALPA. I took an active and somewhat visible role in the fight against the TA, heard through the grapevine that my name had come up in high places, and decided I'd better lower my profile for a little while. I wasn't about to stop writing for Flying, but figured I could take a little break from blogging until things settled down. Well, now that the dust has cleared, we have a new MEC Chairman, a new Negotiating Committee, and a lot of new reps - all this a full month before our current contract becomes amendable. I suspect the more traditional contract negotiation process we're about to enter will drag on for several years, as it has at other companies. I'm not going to refrain from blogging that long. Writing has a certain intertia to it. Start writing, and you'll tend to keep going. Stop writing, and you tend to stay inert. In reality I probably could have resumed blogging a month or two ago.

The good news is that I have a bit of a backlog of things to write about. I actually have a few already-written posts that I'll release over the next couple days, and then I'll reflect on my last days on the Mad Dog and the preparation for and first several weeks of 757/767 training (I'm about halfway through right now). In the meantime, you should definitely check out Flying's December issue. Besides my usual column, I have a six-page feature about the flying/sailing trip to the Bahamas that I think turned out really well. Enjoy!

The End of the Beginning

A few nights ago, on a vote of 5-4, the Master Executive Council of American Eagle's pilot union voted to reject the concessions-for-jets deal that American Airlines Group had been pursuing with the union under the threat of closing Eagle down if concessions were not approved. In rejecting the concessions, the majority cited industry conditions and forces very similar to those I laid out in my essay on the topic immediately below this post. Before the vote, the MEC had been expected to approve sending the Tentative Agreement to the wider pilot group for member ratification. Those opposed to concessions were able to convince one representative to switch his vote.

This development comes several weeks after the pilot membership at ExpressJet Airlines voted against a similar concessionary contract by an overwhelming 83%. Other recent events that may have swayed the MEC include Great Lakes Airlines shutting down their Minneapolis hub for lack of pilots, United announcing that they will close their CLE hub to alleviate staffing shortages at their regional partners, and Republic Airways' statement that they will be prematurely ending 50-seat contracts at their Chautauqua branch in order to by able to staff Embraer 175s currently coming on line for American flying. On the heels of the AE vote against concessions, Republic today announced that they have come to a tentative agreement for a new contract with their pilots after seven years (!) of negotiations. The details are not yet known but Republic stated the contract contains increased pay to help attract new pilots.

All these events are the direct result of a "pilot shortage" that is really only in its infancy - which is to say that for now, there are still plenty of qualified pilots, just not enough who are willing to work for pauper's pay. It's going to be very interesting to see how things progress. I think airline pilots and especially regional pilots will have some great opportunities along the way, and it seems like many are just awakening to this fact. I have no doubt that AAG will attempt to make good on their threat to shut Eagle down - and the Eagle MEC has said they'll try - but I think they're going to have a very hard time shifting that flying anywhere but mainline and finding pilots to fly it. Kudos to the Eagle pilots for recognizing which way the leverage is swinging.

The Insanity of Concessions in 2014

My next Taking Wing column is coming out in a few days in Flying's March 2014 issue, and takes on the much-discussed (and sometimes disputed) pilot shortage. It was sparked by a string of articles in major newspapers over the past year, cockpit conversations I've had on the subject, and the sudden, inexplicable concessionary environment that has emerged at the regionals. As usual, the column is written mostly for a non-airline, general aviation audience. Therefore I wrote another essay, somewhat on the same subject but written more for an airline pilot audience and addressing the concessions more directly. I posted it to the Airline Pilot Central forums, where it received quite a bit of attention, and it went a bit viral after that, being reposted on various forums and email lists. This essay is copied below. If you like it, check out the March issue of Flying when it comes out. In a few days I'll also write a post containing the retirement and new commercial pilot statistics & analysis used in writing both articles.

The Insanity of Concessions in 2014

It’s just about all that pilots are talking about these days: in classrooms, at flight schools, in cockpits of airplanes big and small, the pilot shortage is on everyone’s mind and everyone’s lips. Mind you, not everyone is a true believer: many of us have been hearing about the pilot shortage our entire careers, even as we were furloughed, stuck on stagnant seniority lists, and forced to start over at poverty-level wages. Much of the loudest hype comes from the flight training industry and others with something to gain. Every time the shortage seems to be gaining steam, something unforeseen comes along and pushes it back another five years. It’s not surprising that so many pilots – regional pilots especially – are so cynical about the current shortage talk.

And yet, the numbers are incontrovertible. The three remaining legacy megacarriers (Delta, United, & American) will see a huge pilot retirement spike in the coming years, peaking in 2023 and not really easing until another decade after that. In the next five years alone, they will lose 5098 pilots to mandatory retirement. By 2023, that number increases to 15,235; by 2027, the number is 23,850, or 64% of the current seniority lists. Add in FedEx and UPS, and the 14-year total is 28,450. The national and non-legacy majors add thousands more.

Now, there is still a lot of flight training infrastructure in this country, and we certainly have the capability to train 30,000 new pilots in the next 14 years. The problem is that historically low numbers of people are investing $80,000 or more in training for a career and industry whose troubles have been widely publicized in the general media. The FAA issued fewer commercial certificates in the last three years than any other period since the early 1980s, and a large portion of these were issued to foreign nationals who plan to return home to fly for their national carriers. Even if the pilot shortage publicity sparks a renewed wave of flight training, there will be a 3-4 year lag before these new entrants are qualified to fly for an airline, by which time the effects of the shortage will be very deeply felt and rapidly multiplying.

Of course, these effects will not be felt equally by all sectors of the industry. The three airlines retiring the most pilots will be almost entirely unaffected. They know that their pay and benefits will attract enough pilots from the military, corporate world, lower-paid national carriers, and regional airlines to easily replace their retirees. In fact, the regionals alone have over 21,000 pilots, most qualified to fly for the major airlines and many planning to do exactly that. It is who will replace these regional pilots that is the real problem – especially since the modern regionals represent such a large share of the major airlines’ domestic networks. Already, with the shortage barely underway, the lowest-paid regionals like Great Lakes have been absolutely crippled by a dearth of qualified pilots willing to work for them, and more established regionals like American Eagle are already offering signing bonuses of $5000 or more to meet their rather modest demand for pilots. In the very early stages of major airline hiring, airlines like Endeavor are already losing many more pilots than they can entice to show up for class. If you look at the retirement numbers discussed above, it becomes clear that the later effects of the shortage will be far, far more pronounced.

Any first-year Econ student could tell you that in this situation, with a shortage of qualified labor, one can expect wages to rise. And yet, here we have a peculiar example of an entire industry defying the laws of economics, for the very opposite is presently true: there is strong downward pressure on regional pilot wages. This is because the newly emboldened mega-legacies are treating their erstwhile regional partners much like Walmart treats its suppliers: smaller, vulnerable targets to be bullied into submission and forced to slash costs, even to their own detriment, because the alternative is annihilation. Regional management has grown increasingly desperate, having seen their peers unsuccessfully attempt branded flying (ACA, ExpressJet), merging with other carriers (Pinnacle, ASA), or diversifying their partnerships (Mesa, Republic) in an effort to survive the storm. They are now willing to slash costs no matter the consequence, even if it eventually robs them of pilots to fly the airplanes, so long as it lets them live to fight another day. To do this, they are preying on their pilots’ insecurities about their careers, forged in the turmoil of the post-9/11 era and not yet attuned to the opportunities of a labor shortage.

Pinnacle was the first to do this, with Delta pulling the strings and assisted by a bankruptcy court. They were able to convince their pilots that rejecting concessions would result in an even worse contract being imposed by the court, Delta slashing capacity at the airline, and the loss of many jobs. This was the stick; the carrot was a promise of future mainline jobs. Together it was enough to lure the pilots into massive concessions only a year after securing a very hard-won contact that took years to negotiate. PSA was next. Outside of bankruptcy, they were able to convince their pilots that their 50-seat exposure spelled eventual doom, and only voluntary concessions to secure 76-seat flying could save them. And now American Eagle, the second-largest regional airline in the nation, is telling its pilots that they must endure a second round of draconian concessions only 18 months after approving the first round – or be shut down as Comair was. This, even while they offer $5000 signing bonuses to attract new pilots! The sheer nerve of it is breathtaking.

The problem here is that the turmoil and stagnation of the last 13 years, coupled with a seniority system that traditionally ties a pilot’s career to the health of his airline, has made it very easy to convince pilots that the death of one’s employer means the death of one’s career. In the context of the regionals and the pilot shortage from 2014 forward, it’s simply not true. First off, the major airlines are not looking to reduce system capacity. Their yields are consistently high, they are making record profits, and they have begun ordering airplanes. While they will continue to shift capacity from the regionals to mainline, they will not cut overall capacity. Coupled with the massive retirements at the majors, this means ample job opportunities for regional pilots regardless of how long individual regional airlines survive. Secondly, any shutdown of a regional airline – due to lack of concessions, or more likely, due to other industry conditions – will necessarily be long and drawn out, as Comair was. Delta taking possession of Pinnacle in bankruptcy rather than risk a shutdown, at a time Delta was actively trying to get rid of 50-seaters, shows that they could not afford to cut or shift that capacity suddenly. If Eagle is shut down – with or without concessions – I expect it will be drawn down at roughly the rate of pilot attrition, not with massive furloughs sending starving FOs to the unemployment dole. Thirdly, it’s not clear where capacity could be shifted to, if not mainline; few regionals can easily staff their present flying, to say nothing of growth.

The reality is that concessions will not save the regional airline industry; they will only prolong its demise. The regional business model of the past 20 years is essentially dead. It was always based on cheap fuel, a cheap and plentiful labor supply, low employee longevity, new airplanes with inexpensive maintenance, expensive and unproductive mainline pilot contracts, and nearly endless growth. None of these conditions apply anymore. The pilot shortage is the final nail in the coffin. Going forward, the industry will slowly return to its roots of the 80s and early 90s: a niche player in small markets where high yields can justify high costs. It benefits none of us to prolong this process, keeping more of us at the regionals longer. It benefits none of us to put downward pressure on wages of airplanes that will likely end up at mainline in the long run. It benefits none of us to accept smaller paychecks at a time that our skills are becoming increasingly valuable.

Finally, regional pilots of all people ought to recognize the moral repugnance of freezing pay for newhires who will work for the regionals after we’re gone, consigning future pilots to even worse wages than the ones we’ve spent so much time lamenting. How many times have we decried major airline pilots selling scope and creating a C-scale? And yet there are many of us prepared to do essentially the same thing to those who follow in our footsteps! It’s utterly shameful, and given current industry conditions, more than a little insane. The only thing that can prompt us to do something so illogical – the only tool in management’s toolbox these days – is fear. The pilots of ExpressJet are to be commended for taking a clearheaded look around the industry, realizing that there is nothing to fear but fear itself, and making a stand for their chosen profession. It is my sincere hope that the pilots of American Eagle will heed their example, reject the poisonous whispers of the fearmongers, and make us proud. 

Delayed

When I think about all the complexities of an airline, all the moving parts that need to work together for a flight to get out, and how "lean" most operations are these days, I'm frankly amazed that we ever run on time. Yet, this is the case far more often than not. The U.S. Department of Transportation has collected data on airline performance since 1995, and most years at least 75% of airline flights operated on-time (defined as arrival within 14 minutes of scheduled time). So far this year we're at nearly 84%. Typically between 1% and 3% of flights are cancelled, and around 1 in 500 are diverted enroute.

NewCo turns in frequent on-time performance of 90% or more, but it's not necessarily due to superior management or pilots (as much as I'd like to claim the latter). It's mostly a function of where we fly. I've landed the JungleBus at 83 airports in 40 states and five Canadian provinces, which is amazing for a small airline of 42 airplanes (and there are a dozen additional destinations I've never landed at). This is because WidgetCo is a bit schizophrenic about how to use us, as they are with all ten of their regional partners. Right now we're doing a lot of west coast flying out of Salt Lake City, which is very good for on-time performance. Last year, though, we did a lot of flying up and down the east coast out of Washington-National Airport. The year before that, we did a ton of flying out of New York's LaGuardia Airport, to the extent that we nearly opened a crew base there. Our on-time rating took a huge hit then.

The northeast airports - particularly PHL, EWR, LGA, JFK, and BOS - have the most air traffic congestion, along with mega-hubs ORD and ATL. This has such a big impact on airline operations that when WidgetCo wanted to rid themselves of a troublesome long-term contract with Mesa Airlines, they simply moved their airplanes to JFK, waited for the inevitable, and then terminated the contract for poor performance. During JFKs evening peak, a two-hour taxi is fairly common - and that's without weather. In the summer, a single air-mass thunderstorm 100 miles west can shut down most departures. In the winter, it doesn't take much snow to bring ground traffic to a grinding halt. The DOT's three-hour rule further complicates things. Even on decent weather days, it's pretty common to have a EDCT (Expect Departure Clearance Time) to the northeast airports.

Most places outside the northeast, though, delays are usually weather-related, and tend to vary seasonally. Minneapolis, Chicago, and Detroit suffer in the winter. Thunderstorms regularly shut down Dallas and Atlanta in the spring and summer. Los Angeles hums right along in all seasons.

Behind weather and air traffic control, unplanned maintenance is a common cause of delays. Most of the time, airplanes are scheduled for maximum utilization with few breaks, so any unplanned maintenance results in a rolling delay for the rest of the day unless the airline has a spare airframe handy somewhere along the way. For this reason, many minor items can be deferred for later repair through the use of a Minimum Equipment List (MEL). When I find that something has broken, the first thing I reach for is the MEL book, followed shortly thereafter by the aircraft logbook and my phone to call Maintenance Control. We discuss whether the discrepancy can be deferred, whether it should be deferred, and if not, what our plan of action is. I try to get an estimate of how long it'll take mechanics to arrive at the airplane and how long it will then take them to either fix the discrepancy or at least arrive at a diagnosis. If passengers on board, I try to give them an update on our status every fifteen minutes or so. If we haven't started boarding, I pass along information to the gate agent.

With experience, one develops a sense of which maintenance problems will be resolved quickly and which ones will have you sitting a while, and you can act accordingly. With a long anticipated delay, both passengers and cabin crew will be happier with the passengers off the airplane. If at a hub, I'll start bugging dispatch about getting a different airplane in these cases. If I think it'll be resolved quickly, I'll start or continue boarding and have everything ready to go on my end as soon as we get the logbook back. It's important to communicate with the ground crew, as they otherwise often get left out of the loop and will wander off to other airplanes; you can find yourself finally ready to go but with no personnel to load the last bags or push back the aircraft. Over time, I've learned to overestimate maintenance delays when talking to passengers, as they have a way of dragging out long than expected; best to under-promise and over-deliver.

In my experience, the most common source of delays is simply receiving the airplane late from another crew at the start of your day. I've had days where this has occurred three times, every time I had a plane swap. It's frustrating, especially during an already-long day when delays cut into already-short rest time.

Once delayed, your goal is to get back on-time or as close to it as possible, although always within the bounds of safety. It is possible to get so fixated with going fast that you make mistakes. There are usually some easy, common-sense steps, though. You can request a more convenient runway from ATC. You can request more direct routing from center. You can change your altitude based on aircraft performance and winds aloft, and you can fly at a faster cruise mach number. This may result in worse efficiency, but sometimes it's worth it to get the airplane back on time - particularly early in the day, when making up fifteen minutes makes all subsequent flights that day fifteen minutes closer to on-time. On long flights that tend to be over-blocked, it's possible to make up 30 to 45 minutes in one flight. That said, it's important is to make sure you don't short yourself on fuel you might need later. I'm far more likely to cruise at Mach .81 and FL300 going to Billings on a clear day than I am going to Newark with forecast thunderstorms. You need to coordinate with your dispatcher, and take on extra fuel if necessary.

The other time to make up delays is on subsequent ground turns. The key here is communicating with ground personnel. They'll know you're coming in late, but expressing the need for a quick turn and the crew's willingness to pitch in helps put them in high gear. Small things like starting the APU early to shut the engines down quickly, helping clean the cabin, and running gate-check bags out to the rampers can help shave off minutes.

One thing I do find a bit ludicrous is the obsession many airlines, most gate agents, and some pilots have with "On-Time Zero" or "D-0," basically making sure the airplane isn't even one minute late in departing. Some people go to extraordinary lengths to get the door closed and the parking brake dropped by departure time, even if there's still a lot that needs to be done and the airplane can't actually move for another five or ten minutes. Mind you, all that's at stake is the airline's own internal records. So far as the DOT is concerned, the airplane is on-time until it's fifteen minutes late. The gate agent, however, is often called to account by their supervisors if the plane is even one minute late. This was particularly bad at Northwest; Widget is a bit less extreme about it, although some gate agents still get really wrapped around the axle about it. My own philosophy is that I'll do my job efficiently and will do what I can to help get the flight out on time, but won't cut corners just for the sake of some meaningless internal record that has absolutely no effect on whether we actually get to our destination on-time or not. I've been called by the chief pilots office over very minor delays in the past, and that's always the answer I've given them. I've never been in trouble over it.

As you can see, most delays are out of the crew's control, and we typically do a lot to help mitigate them. There is one exception to this rule: a withdrawal of enthusiasm, or WOE. It usually occurs during contentious contract negotiations. The idea is that if the company is stonewalling or applying undue pressure to the pilot group, the pilots do their job as defined in the contract, and nothing more. You don't have to try to deliberately delay the airline, that takes care of itself. You simply fly the same way whether the plane is delayed or not. Because airlines have become so used to pilots going above and beyond and have built their schedules accordingly, the operation falls apart when the pilots don't make the extra effort. It can be very effective; as recently as 2007 a WOE campaign resulted in Northwest deleting some of the most onerous provisions of their pilots' bankruptcy contract. Whether it's legal is another matter entirely, as a number of judges have ruled that even a withdrawal of enthusiasm constitutes an illegal work action under the Railway Labor Act. This interpretation, however, hinges on the WOE being coordinated. It's apparently hard for management and their accomplices in the legal profession to imagine that pilots who are being told how little they are worth to their companies might be a bit less than willing to go the extra mile, on their own and without the urging of their union.

End Game

Well my, it's certainly been an interesting few weeks in the old "bums in seats" business, eh? WidgetCo pilots started contract negotiations about six months early, Southwest/Airtran possibly reached a deal with WidgetCo to offload their MD-95s B-717s, and the UCAL pilots got so fed up with their own joint contract negotiations that they announced they'll be seeking a release to strike from the NMB (good luck!). The biggest and juiciest piece of news involved the APA and several other unions at American Airlines forming an unholy alliance with USAirways' "Drunk Dougie" Parker to potentially disrupt Tom Horton & Co's plans to rape and pillage the employees in bankruptcy court. Under the agreement, the AA employees will lend their considerable influence on the creditors' committee in support of a merger with USAirways in exchange for slight raises (as opposed to the 20%+ cuts AA is seeking). It's not that AA management is opposed to a merger; they just want to wring every possible cent in bonuses, stock options, and golden parachutes out of the bankruptcy process before they do it. I think we'll see a few more twists before this particular chapter is through.

Of most interest to me, however, was Pinnacle Airline Corp's own bankruptcy filing on April 1. This is the second bankruptcy filing in several years by a major regional holding company (the first being Mesa) and it reflects the huge challenges that have developed across the entire regional airline industry in recent years. I first wrote about these challenges two years ago, and was accused by a few readers of being a negative Nellie (although I personally consider the regionals' demise to be a net positive for aspiring airline pilots). The trends I noted then have continued and intensified. The regionals' cost structures have continued to increase, major airlines have continued to cancel and not renew contracts for 40-50 seat feed, and additional growth in the 70-90 seat segment has been extremely limited due to scope constraints.

The regional airline industry has tried numerous strategies to cope with these challenges, with dubious results. One idea is to branch out from fee-per-departure flying to perform at-risk independent flying, sometimes with larger aircraft. ACA tried this with Independence Air, ExpressJet attempted their own brand, and Mesa entered the intra-Hawaii market with go!. All were failures. A variation on this strategy is to purchase a mainline carrier to essentially act as a shock absorber for surplus regional aircraft and a hedge against losses from fee-per-departure operations. Republic Airways Holdings did this by purchasing bankrupt carriers (and erstwhile clients) Midwest Airlines and Frontier Airlines and replacing some of the mainline service with Republic-operated E190s and E145s. It hasn't worked out well, with Frontier posting consistent losses and RAH now looking to spin them off.

The other tack taken has been to acquire multiple additional certificates as a means of diversifying one's contract portfolio, reducing one's exposure to the tumultuous 50-seat market, and as a means of securing 70-90 seat growth. Skywest started the consolidation trend with their purchase of ASA and then ExpressJet. The usually-profitable Skywest subsequently posted a loss in 2011. The company I call Osage Holdings started a new certificate ("Pariah Air") and then bought my own airline, NewCo, from WidgetCo in July 2010, an event I wrote about a few months later in the context of industry consolidation. Osage is privately owned and does not file SEC reports, so I have no idea how that's working out for them.

Pinnacle Airlines, meanwhile, purchased Colgan Air in 2007 and Mesaba Airlines (from WidgetCo) in July 2010. It made sense at the time; Colgan diversified Pinnacle's portfolio to include Continental Airlines and the Q400 airframe, while Mesaba decreased Pinnacle's exposure to the 50-seat market. The Mesaba acquisition was at a particularly attractive price, and was financed by WidgetCo, but involved a new fee-per-departure agreement that was not made public at the time but apparently included industry-low compensation rates. This was WidgetCo's quid pro quo for Pinnacle expanding their 70-90 seat business. Unfortunately, it meant Pinnacle began hemorrhaging money when merging the airlines proved costlier than expected. In the first months of the year, Pinnacle tried renegotiating their contracts to stave off bankruptcy. WidgetCo refused to modify the agreements, and Pinnacle filed bankruptcy on April 1.

Here's where things get really fascinating. The bankruptcy filing included $74 million in debtor-in-possession financing by none other than, you guessed it, WidgetCo. Pinnacle announced that among other things, this money would repay a $44 million debt owed to, yep, WidgetCo - so that WidgetCo needn't vie with other creditors for repayment. Pinnacle then moved to terminate its feed agreements with United/Continental and USAirways - incidentally killing the entire Colgan operation and leaving a gaping hole in United's Newark feed at the same time Widget is ramping up operations at LaGuardia - and reject the associated aircraft leases. There is widespread speculation that Pinnacle will emerge from bankruptcy as a whole-owned subsidiary of WidgetCo.

If this all seems a little familiar, it's because we've heard this story before. In 2005, Northwest Airlines filed for bankruptcy and stopped payments to longtime contractor Mesaba Airlines. It forced the otherwise healthy Mesaba into bankruptcy, where Northwest bought them for pennies on the dollar. WidgetCo inherited Mesaba in the merger, then sold them off to Pinnacle, thereby sowing the seeds of Pinnacle's demise. In any other country this would be a national scandal. Here, playing dirty pool is just good business. I fully expect other major airlines to follow suit in dealing with their own costly regional contractors and unwanted 50-seat feed. Consolidation having failed, the regional airlines are essentially left without any good options for survival.

I feel very badly for the hundreds of Pinnacle, Colgan, and Mesaba pilots who are soon to be out of jobs, downgraded, or displaced - particularly Mesaba pilots, given their recent history. At the same time, the majors are essentially tearing down a system that they themselves created. It was natural that they would maintain it only as long as it was advantageous to do so - which it manifestly is not in a world with $105+/bbl oil and consolidated mega-airlines. I think there will always be a certain role for regional airlines, but it's going to be a niche rather than as the mainstay of major airlines' domestic networks. For those pilots who have seen the two-tier system up close and experienced the havoc it has wrought on the piloting profession, the destruction of that system can only be a good thing. It will ultimately mean more jobs at the major airline level, less downward pressure on those jobs' wages, and very possibly a shorter career path to the majors.

Growth and Rumors of Growth

Rumors are a constant fixture of airline life. People trapped in aluminum cylinders for hours on end will talk to pass the time, and seldom limit their conversations to unembellished, supported facts lest they die of boredom! Union politics, management backroom wheeling and dealing, the latest "stupid pilot tricks," scandalous layover love triangles - the topics are limitless. Nearly any source will do: buddies, friends twice removed, check airmen, assistant chief pilots, sim instructors, flight attendants, maintenance guys, some random guy who overheard a VP on his cell phone.

The most common rumors concern growth; new airplanes are perpetually just around the corner. Everyone wants to believe it, because everyone benefits from an instant shot of seniority. Without growth, the only way to move up is when someone else moves out. In times like these when the majors aren't hiring and Age 65 has the codgers "flying till they die," only growth has the power to turn FOs into Captains and reservists into lineholders.

Horizon's seniority list was especially stagnant, so growth rumors were constant; everyone desperately wanted them to be true. We were getting more Q400s; we were going to fly for Northwest. We were converting the Q200s to freighters and starting a cargo operation. We were getting Embraer 195s - in fact, engineers were in the PDX hangar figuring out how to modify the door to accommodate the E195! Bill the airport shuttle van driver said so!

What actually happened was that Horizon lost their Frontier JetExpress contract three years into a 12 year deal, brought those CRJ-700s back to the Horizon side and put them on unprofitable short routes, sold half of them, then sold all their Q200s to CommutAir, replaced them with fewer Q400s, withdrew from a bunch of small markets that couldn't support a 76 seat airplane, and then leased the remaining CRJs to Skywest to fly Horizon's former routes as Alaska Express. Horizon is 30 airplanes smaller than when I left in 2007.

There have been rumors at NewCo, too. We were going to fly as Alaska Express. WidgetCo was furious with Republic becoming a competitor by purchasing Frontier and Midwest, and was going to terminate their feed contracts and give the flying to us. For the last six months, there were persistent rumors of new JungleBuses, albeit a smaller version than we fly now. Management consistently denied specific rumors while coyly suggesting that our new ownership certainly opened the door to additional flying.

About a month ago I was flying with Jay, one of our most senior flight attendants and also the head of NewCo's flight attendant union. "So have you heard of any rumors of new airplanes?" he asked me before our flight to Vancouver. "Naw," I replied with a grin, "Not much. Just that we're getting ten airplanes from Australia and Italy and they're coming this summer." Jay nodded seriously. "Yes, that's basically it. The announcement comes out Monday."

I politely suppressed a chortle, because not once in my career has an "impending announcement" rumor come true. I quickly forgot about what Jay said, and indeed Monday came and went without a hint of an announcement. But a few days later, I was sitting at home when I got a call from Mitch, a Horizon friend who recently came to NewCo.

"Dude, you hear about the new planes!?" he asked excitedly.

"Suure! Pretty much constantly for the last six months!" was my sardonic reply.

"No, it's for real this time. Check your company email!"

So for once a growth rumor came true, and it was even pretty accurate. NewCo is getting 12 used JungleBusses, six from Alitalia and six from Virgin Blue, at a rate of one a month starting around June. NewCo will grow 33% over one year, from 36 aircraft to 48. I'd probably be more excited about it if I were on the cusp of an upgrade or was just about to hold weekends off or was nearly off reserve. But being a senior Captain, the growth will have very little impact on me.

I can't help but note that this isn't true growth, but a capacity reshuffling. Widget's available seat-miles are remaining essentially flat from last year. Some of our growth likely replaces Widget DC9-30s and -40s that were parked last year and the -50s that will be parked this year. As someone who would like to fly for Widget soon, that's not a good thing. I would rather see mainline aircraft replace mainline aircraft (and in a perfect world, replace regional aircraft too!).

For the most part, though, we're growing at the expense of Comair. Those poor guys don't seem to have a friend in the world. Widget management has been rather vindictive to Comair since their pilot strike ten years ago, and is now apparently intent on dismantling them piece by piece. Regional pilots are mostly sympathetic to the Comair pilots' plight but of course stand to gain from their misfortune. Widget pilots generally range from neutral to downright gleeful over the situation. There's a lot of bad blood there, much of which stems from a few very public spats the respective unions had in the late 90s and early 2000s. A surprising number of Widget pilots bear a grudge over the Comair strike itself, feeling that it cost mainline so much money that it helped lead to eventual bankruptcy. These are usually the same crusty old types who gripe about regional pilots working for slave wages; God forbid it's one of their slaves that revolts for 89 days.

So really what's happening here isn't any different from the situation with Alaska and Horizon and Skywest. Flying is being transferred from one carrier to another largely based on who pays their employees less money. It's the latest round in the twisted game of musical chairs that is the regional airline industry, and I'm not sure that grabbing a seat this time is really cause for celebration when you're still stuck playing the game.

That said, you can also look at it this way: Comair was going to lose that flying no matter what. Widget could have awarded it to Republic or Skywest or Pinnacle. I have nothing against those carriers (well, the first two anyways) and have friends at each, who I would be happy to see benefit from growth. But I have a lot more close friends at NewCo, and I'm very glad to see them moving up and gaining the quality of life that I've enjoyed simply because I got here a few months before them. I'm sure that at some point NewCo will be the one left standing without a chair, but like everyone else at the regional airlines, I hope that my friends and I are long gone when that happens.

Senior

The course of a flying career may be measured in terms of one's progression between two extremes. At one end, you work your butt off for very little pay. At the other pole, you fly your choice of trips only rather occasionally and seemingly rake in the dough. In general, you do everything in your power to move from the former position to the latter, but for the most part one's career progress is a matter of time and luck.

Meanwhile, this progression is repeated on a smaller scale at the individual employers one might fly for over the course of a career, and even within individual fleets at companies with a variety of equipment. Aviation is a 24/7/365 sort of industry, and whether the unions forced its use or not, seniority is the only workable method of determining who spends Christmas with the kids and who spends it shooting ILS approaches in the snow. Consequently, one's career progression more resembles the game of chutes and ladders than one continuous incline. You start completely over at each individual company over the course of your career. Within each company, your relative seniority suffers as you bid onto larger aircraft.

This does introduce some element of control in an often out-of-control industry. You can choose whether to leave for a more lucrative job, or whether to bid for the bigger airplane or for a Captain slot. By choosing to pass those things up, you can gain more time off, more control over your schedule, and greater stability; in turn you often forfeit a larger paycheck or future career opportunities. At every step of the career you see pilots who have made this choice. There are grizzled old freight dogs flying tattered Metroliners long after they needed to. At the major airlines, there are thousands of widebody FOs who could've held a Captain slot on narrowbody equipment ages ago. At the regional airlines, there is an increasingly huge contingent of lifers who are content to keep a decent schedule and a middling paycheck rather than play "furlough roulette" at the bottom of a major airline's seniority list.

With the recent departure of 60 senior NewCo Captains flowing up to WidgetCo, I suddenly find myself in the unusual position of being quite senior; next month, I will be #25 out of around 400 pilots. I've never been senior anywhere I've worked. I was the designated mop-up guy at AEX (my first part 135 gig), couldn't even get my choice of Lance routes at Ameriflight, was only around 50% of the Q400 FOs after 3.5 years at Horizon, and wasn't an FO at NewCo long enough to enjoy the fruits of seniority. I'm not complaining, because those moves were all the right thing to do from career and personal standpoints. I have, however, become quite accustomed to reserve, working weekends and holidays, inefficient trips, and other things that go along with being junior.

Earlier this year, my company closed our Memphis base and most of the Captains, many of whom were junior to me, came to Minneapolis. I went from 55% seniority to 45% seniority in my seat over the course of a few months. That small change was like flipping a switch. I went from being able to hold only one or two weekend days a month off to holding a cushy Monday-Thursday schedule. I was able to hold efficient trips. I was able to bid a lazy 75 hours instead of an excruciating 95. I was getting 3-5 more days off every month. This was a revelation: flying can be a really nice gig! Suddenly I get why regional lifers stay put, particularly at high-paying places like Horizon.

The thing is, being senior is no guarantee that you'll stay senior, particularly at the regionals. Our seniority list is riddled with pilots who had a good gig before their last airline went belly up or fell on hard times. That's enough to put any thought of sticking around at NewCo out of my head. I'm keeping my options open, but at this point there's a decent chance I'll wind up at WidgetCo sometime next year. If that happens, I'll be tickled, but I will be very, very junior for a long time. Therefore, I'm enjoying the benefits of being senior now - starting with having the 24th through the 31st of December off, heading to Spain with Dawn and my brother, and ringing in the New Year in Barcelona.