Airlines vs Corporate

FlyMarines09

FlyMarines09

Well-Known Member
I've always wanted to fly corporate aircraft for either Part 91 or 135, however with the industry as it is now, I would like to keep an open mind to flying 121. Aside from the obvious with scheduling, I would like some insight on major differences between the two from an operations stand point...
Do 121 pilots crosscheck information gathered from their flight dispatcher? Do they calculate their own performance figures with the AFM? Are the aircraft flown the same way? Does the actual flying offer the same challenge and complexity?
 
I think 121 is quite standardized. That adds to safety at 5am after being up all night. Some corporate guys might find airline stuff boring as corporate can go to more fun places and maybe have a little more "fun" with the airplane. I'm sure your average corporate guy stays in nicer hotels and gets better catering. I sort of like the "knowing what to expect" factor of 121 airline flying, though. Schedules, standardization, same airports, ect. I guess I'm a guy who doesn't like surprises much...hehe.

As to the flight plan info, it's all computerized and standardized. We don't actually talk to the dispatcher unless there is a problem. I review the mounds of paperwork with a special eye to fuel burns and weather. Unfortunately, there is reams of crap that doesn't apply much that you have to sift though. But it's all computer generated without me raising a finger. Very easy and simple. Performance? The F/O does it but we run it from paperwork on the flight release. You look at temp, runway, wind, and expected weight. Circle a few things and come up with max TO weight and max weight that you can go with a derate thrust setting. It's pretty easy and we get all the "data" from dispatch.

I think all flying has it's challenges. I really don't like a challenge. I just want it to be easy. Nothing goes wrong. Takeoff. Land. Go the the hotel. Collect the paycheck every two weeks. Blah, blah. I hate to be so boring but there is something to be said for keeping things simple and easy.

I'm sure many corporate jobs are way more exciting and perhaps have better job satisfaction. My job satisfaction is my W2 and my crazy few hours flown per year. To each his own.
 
I've done both but have been corporate for the last 7 years. I work for a large department. Although we operate part 91 we do so with a comprehensive SOP that in most cases mirrors or is more restrictive than Part 121 (especially in areas such as crew rest). The flying can be as mundane as airline flying or rather exciting. We fly to the largest airports in the country but also to some of the smallest non-towered fields in towns you've never heard of. You could be in Boston one day and San Jose, Costa Rica the next. We typically fly fewer legs than our airline counterparts, although I have flown as many as six legs in a single day here. The trip that I'm on now included one leg as an airline passenger, 2 as a pilot - a 3 day "hotel appreciation" break, and then two legs home.I fly about 1/3 as much as my airline counterparts over the course of a year. Pay depends on aircraft type, but part 91 typically pays far better than any regional -- but about on-par with senior FO / junior Captain pay at the majors. Most reputable major airline Captains will exceed our pay at the top half of their payscales.

I can't speak for other departments but for domestic trips the crew plans our own flights including routing, altitudes, performance, weight and balance, etc. Very little of it is printed, however, as we use iPad EFBs. Once everything is planned it is just emailed to the other pilot and then briefed on the morning of departure.

There are pros and cons to both jobs - but those are better discussed over a frosty barley malt someday.
 
Its been pretty well summed up from DE727 and Zap, but to reiterate what they said..

I fly part 91/135 and I average about 400-450 hours a year. The schedule is as erratic as a drunkard throwing darts in a poolhall and I usually have no idea where I am going until the night before. Different departments have different schedules, as I work a 12 on 2 off schedule. I am on call for those 12. One of the pros for the 121 guys is the idea of knowing your schedule. It can be very appealing and if you have never worked a job where you are on call 24/7 and not knowing whats going on, it can be VERY appealing to know your schedule. Also the airlines tend to have a pretty structures pay scale. You work X years you get paid X amount. 135/91 can be very arbitrary, it can work in your favor, but it can also work against you.

At our company we take care of all the fuel calculations, performance, and essentially getting the aircraft ready and putting it away. We have a charter department that takes care of hotels, car rentals, catering for pax, etc. Although sometimes it comes down and we have to deal with it and make arrangements.

Remember there is a difference between 91 and 135 flying as well.
 
I know when I was flying the MU2 Part 91 it was a blast, but also a lot of work. Smaller, different airports all the time, more freedom on how I wanted to do things but I was also in charge of booking hotels, ordering fuel, planing and filing flights, catering, and making sure drivers were booked for the bosses and/or rental cars were arranged. I did this often with less than 24 hours notice.

When it comes to the flying, I would take Corp more than half the time.

However, Airlines offer a number of things, once you have been at the majors for a while pay is better, most of the planning is done for you, but as Zap pointed out many high end corporate operations are run like airlines. The one thing airlines offer me that the corporate lifestyle couldn't is the schedule. Once you get off the bottom of the barrel reserve schedule you can get the days off you want. Ask the wife what days off she needs you to have and I can usually work my schedule to make that happen. On top of that I know at least 3 weeks out when I will be home and when I will be gone. Allows us to plan ahead instead of being called out for a trip when I was going to watch my kid the next day. The last thing I experienced with the corporate lifestyle is that when my wife looks at my airline schedule she knows exactly when I will be home. +/- a few hours. I have been on Corporate trips that were supposed to last a week and they turn into 2 week trip.

That is just my experience. I only flew Corp for a couple of years, but that is what the 91 side is like for a SMALL company.
 
Zap summed it up well. I've never worked airline, but I can tell you that as corporate, you will generally spend A LOT of time sitting. You also wont know where you're going (Unless you work for someone personally who goes to the same places). I go back to work this Monday, and I won't know if I'm going to be on the road for 7 days, or sitting standby at the airport every day until I get a call from ops. If you're okay with not knowing where you're going, you'll love corporate. After being in my position for only 7 months, I really can't imagine going to the airlines, I just love the fact that I don't know where I'm going to be sleeping that night, and whether or not I'll be going to a 2500' strip or JFK the next day.
 
I fly 121 at a large regional. As others have said it is very standardized and dispatch pretty much does most of the planning of the flight (routes, altitudes, fuel requirements, etc.) and, as a crew, we merely look it over. We arrive at the gate, receive the paperwork, which includes the flight release and weather/NOTAM package, and then review it to ensure that we agree that the flight can be completed safely as planned. Many times we have new dispatchers (not a bad thing, just the nature of the beast) who may miss things or have a difference of opinion with the PIC, so it is not uncommon to rework some stuff with the dispatcher to come to an agreeable situation. Almost always this consists of a different alternate airport, getting more contingency fuel, or changing a route due to weather or turbulence.

In our paperwork package, we also receive what we call an "MGL" or "Max Gross Load", which is essentially a document that tells us how much weight we can accept for various runways based on environmental conditions. This is normally just "info only" for planning the flight, or helping us decide which runway(s) we can accept while we are preparing the aircraft. Once it comes time to actually do the W/B calculations and takeoff performance, we use ACARS. We input the passenger numbers and cargo information, and it then sends us a report with our W/B info. It gives us our weight, our CG as %MAC, and trim settings for T/O. We then send off a request for a specific runway performance. This report basically tells us the maximum weight in order to use the runway based on balanced field, obstacles, etc. It also provides our v-speeeds. So, under normal ops, performance for us is done in a matter of seconds just with the computer.
 
I have very limited experience in part 91 corporate, but I thought I could add a few things. The flight department I fly for is VERY small (1 chief pilot, a Lear 35 and a Citation 560), and all other pilots are contract. The chief pilot often complains about how the company owner tends to be "controlling", and often "harasses" him about little things all the time. I'm in ignorant bliss since I just fly contract and send the invoice for payment, and I very rarely have any interaction with the company owner. A majority of the time we don't know with any certainty when he will show up and when can depart. It will be 1 hour later than his original notification on average, and when he drinks it can extend up to 4 hours (although sometimes this leads to him tipping because he feels bad about us getting home late). So any regular schedule goes out the window in this operation. I'm sure schedule vastly varies depending on the type of people you fly for. This is just one example. Find some good people to fly for and it may be completely different. That's the corporate world. As for airlines, if you like consistant schedules and routes, than that may be the way you want to go. I make pretty darn reasonable pay for per day corporate flying. As for airlines, I can't say much about pay.
 
Thanks for taking the time to explain some of the idiosyncrasies.
Here's something that I don't understand completely. Being that a lot of regional F/Os are young pilots (relatively low hours), how do you guys stay proficient at navigation, flight planning, etc when it's done for you? Do the Capt and F/O crosscheck what has been giving to you by operations? To me, that's part of the fun of flying. Also, are there many restrictions to how much hand flying can be done or is it mostly autopilot? A lot of my co-workings think that commercial airplanes fly themselve all the time... I'd like to prove them wrong.
What are some of the hiring standards for FOs and upgrades at 135/91 operators? I'm not familiar with their training, hiring and upgrade structure. Do pilots typically start 121 to build jet time and then go 135/91 after?
 
I'll address your final question and leave the meat and potatoes for someone else to tackle. With regard to hiring standards for 135/91 -- it varies wildly. Some 135 carriers are fairly low-end operators and, as such, are not able to attract high-time candidates. Same with SOME Part 91 operators (typically owner/operator or single aircraft)

Corporate flight departments, especially Fortune 500, generally (but not exclusively) are able to attract much higher time candidates -- although that does not necessarily mean that they were previous 121. Networking is especially important in Part 91 as "who you know" and whether or not you fit in to the culture of the pilot group counts to a much greater degree than hours in a logbook. One of my supervisors has said in the past, "We hire people. Not logbooks". In some departments, being a former airline pilot is actually a negative since airline pilots are perceived (I believe unfairly) to be unwilling to do the extra work that is sometimes required of corporate pilots.

That said, the last several newhire classes we have run have had at least a few former airline people in them. Of that group (without disclosing numbers) 77% were prior airline, 15% were prior 135, and about 7% were CFI. Newhire flight times have ranged from around 2200 TT to greater than 7000 TT.
 
I'll second Zap- 135/91 hiring practices revolve more around personal fit and networking than TT alone. I will add that many 135 operators cater to clients wanting Wyvern/Argus quals- looking up those pilot requirements should give you a pretty good idea of competitive/usual TT's for initial hire/upgrade at a 135 op.

As far as the planning/flying end heregoes:

Recently made the move from 91/135 to 121. Will say for me having licensed dispatch is a huge plus, but I and many others still double check their wok- ie routing vs WX, fuel burns, alternates. You can still stay proficient there. I find the flying itself very similar save the destinations. The previous 135/91 job trained to profiles just like the airline work. I can and do still hand fly.
 
ZapBrannigan said:
In some departments, being a former airline pilot is actually a negative since airline pilots are perceived (I believe unfairly) to be unwilling to do the extra work that is sometimes required of corporate pilots.
Click to expand...

You mean I can't spill coffee in the cockpit without cleaning it, can't eat fried chicken and gunk up the yoke and.... I have to... treat the aircraft as if the man who owns it is in the back of the aircraft? Preposterous. :)
 
ZapBrannigan said:
In some departments, being a former airline pilot is actually a negative since airline pilots are perceived (I believe unfairly) to be unwilling to do the extra work that is sometimes required of corporate pilots.
Click to expand...

That's true in my experience as well, as I used to be former corporate and charter and heard the same BS. Now having flown for an airline for a little while, I find the whole "airline stink" situation absurd. The odds of me flying with a crappy/unsafe pilot in the charter/corporate world were MUCH higher than what I've experienced in the airlines. As far as the extra work involved for corporate, it's really not that hard to get a new guy up to speed on the all important CIP skills, and really how freaking difficult is it to teach somebody how to use fltplan.com along with a little bit of common sense?

I know you know all that Zap, but it really does astound me at the number of charter/corporate pilots that think they are doing this amazing thing that is just way beyond the grasp of the average airline pilot. It just boils down to insecurity and job protectionism to be quite honest.
 
Doug Taylor said:
You mean I can't spill coffee in the cockpit without cleaning it, can't eat fried chicken and gunk up the yoke and.... I have to... treat the aircraft as if the man who owns it is in the back of the aircraft? Preposterous. :)
Click to expand...

And don’t touch my instruments and leave fingerprints.
 
91/135 is a misnomer. SOME 91 departments are like a 135, but NO 135 is like a good 91. 135 is fine in a lot of ways, but you'll spend a lot of time on the road. Some are better than others in small ways, but they're all pretty much the same. Nice place to visit, and I had some grand times, but I wouldn't want to stay. OTOH, a really good 91 gig for a stable employer flying well-maintained equipment is a career job. Other than the hunk of metal you're operating, the two are totally different.
 
Well I appreciate everyone's insight. I guess it all boils down to what type of equipment you want to fly and how well you can adapt to each operator's corporate culture. I hope to be able to give advice to a young guy one day. Thanks for taking the time to explain
 
Yes - except for the "what type of equipment you want to fly" garbage which is irrelevant and comes WAAAY after compensation, benefits, retirement, time off, and where you want to live...

It is SO irrelevant that I would actually put it at the bottom below "does the cable provider where I will live have Flying Wild Alaska?" and "Is there a 5 Guys in domicile?"
 
Again, all I have is anecdotes.

I have met Zap, Jtrain, and Ctab (Wes).

Zap seemed well fed and content. We enjoyed appetizers and a cool one. He did nothing to embarrass me.

Ctab is a regional pilot and was like meeting an old friend. We had hamburgers and conversed about radial engines and airplanes with tail wheels and fabric covering.

Jtrain I believe was more of the norm for a regional pilot. He looked emaciated when I picked him up - stomach swollen from hunger with flies hovering around him like some kind of Sally Struthers commercial. We went to a place to eat and he asked the waitress "Is the garnish free?" and when she replied "Yes, it is" he ordered a large plate of garnish. We got the all you can eat buffet, and after we finished he made one final trip through the buffet line, stuffing our pockets with muffins, shrimp and other things he could take so he could eat on the remainder of his four day trip - kind of like the scene in Trading Places where Akroyd is in the Santa suit at the company party and piling things from the buffet into his pocket.
 
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