Ameriflight

Inverted said:
It could work that's for sure. Weather people can stomach AMF for 10 years is an entirely different subject. Increased pay didn't do it, and with majors that are gonna be hiring like mad, I dunno if people would stick around long enough. But if you could go to AMF, throw your apps out and if nobody calls, you have UPS guaranteed, and that would be awesome. Lots can happen in 10 years though. If we see hiring stop there, you lose all positive benefits of a flow through. Like I said it has to be lucrative for both to really work, and attract pilots.


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The pay increase came too late to be effective. The regionals stepped up their game to match AMF's pay. Some regionals are beating AMF first year pay. Add on top of that all the movement happening the hiring at JetBlue and Spirit, where many AMF pilots are getting hired, and they have what they have....

Not to mention the corporate aviation side....
 
KLB said:
The pay increase came too late to be effective. The regionals stepped up their game to match AMF's pay. Some regionals are beating AMF first year pay. Add on top of that all the movement happening the hiring at JetBlue and Spirit, where many AMF pilots are getting hired, and they have what they have....

Not to mention the corporate aviation side....
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Oh the pay was a decade late. And there are lots of things that are increasingly late that still haven't been changed. The regionals already offered lots of perks, now that the pay is there and they will pay for your ATP, it's a real hard sell. Plus you have lots of issues at AMF that can't/won't be fixed. Schedule, treatment on the road, layovers, equipment and even the pay isn't stellar. 44k for a BE99 CA is still pretty low. I know it's beating a dead horse to deather :p but regional pay with first year bonuses has matched and surpassed the pay at AMF for non typed equipment.

A UPS flow agreement would be the first time AMF has actually done something proactive. Which would surprise me. Historically they have been way too late to the dinner table.
 
I think the hardest sell is QOL. Pretty hard to look at freight and look at guys at the regionals using their zed fairs and a strategic sick call to travel to Thailand for 2 weeks or more...

No entry level 135 and even some decent 135s will EVER touch that. If you can progress quickly, you can make a little more money up to about the 2-5 year mark ( depending on when the guy you're comparing to upgrades), but that is about it.

3-4 years here and an LCC, or an unknown number of years (might be the same, might be more) and a legacy is the choice. Maybe you could do 4-5 years total between AMF and an LCC and end up at a legacy just the same.

I don't think coming here is a waste yet. It just depends on what you want out of your career early on. In hindsight, being based in MSP as a Captain at Compass is what I'd rather have right now, and would have been for 2 years now. That being said, the extra things that AMF has allowed me to experience, I think I'd probably still do this again.
 
Depends on what you mean by waste. Waste is a strong word. You get turbine PIC time which is good, but the pull of that time in the logbook doesn't go as far as it used to, guys can easily get hired without it. If by waste, you mean come to AMF, spend 6 years, hopefully get hired at Allegiant, if not you go to Compass or another regional, then 5 years later hopefully SWA or a legacy picks you up, yea that could be a waste to go to AMF first. Lots of companies appreciate AMF, while there might be some companies that frown upon AMF, or not know who AMF is, the majority of companies will appreciate single pilot freight that can offer the next step in the career. The company I work for now didn't know who AMF was, nor made any comments to my flying there. They were more concerned with my previous jet experience. I was actually surprised.

Take jump seating, zed fairs and all that completely out of the equation, hell AMF has CASS and can jump seat on a bunch of airlines. Work QOL to work QOL, there is a big difference and that will never change. Having work rules, union representation, protection, and therefore them having your back, is huge.

QOL is a hurdle only a guaranteed seat at UPS can overcome. So if AMF can pull something like that off, I will eat my hat and I will be shocked at the same time. But it would be great to see for the survival of AMF, because they have to do something or they won't survive.
 
Inverted said:
Depends on what you mean by waste. Waste is a strong word. You get turbine PIC time which is good, but the pull of that time in the logbook doesn't go as far as it used to, guys can easily get hired without it. If by waste, you mean come to AMF, spend 6 years, hopefully get hired at Allegiant, if not you go to Compass or another regional, then 5 years later hopefully SWA or a legacy picks you up, yea that could be a waste to go to AMF first. Lots of companies appreciate AMF, while there might be some companies that frown upon AMF, or not know who AMF is, the majority of companies will appreciate single pilot freight that can offer the next step in the career. The company I work for now didn't know who AMF was, nor made any comments to my flying there. They were more concerned with my previous jet experience. I was actually surprised.

Take jump seating, zed fairs and all that completely out of the equation, hell AMF has CASS and can jump seat on a bunch of airlines. Work QOL to work QOL, there is a big difference and that will never change. Having work rules, union representation, protection, and therefore them having your back, is huge.

QOL is a hurdle only a guaranteed seat at UPS can overcome. So if AMF can pull something like that off, I will eat my hat and I will be shocked at the same time. But it would be great to see for the survival of AMF, because they have to do something or they won't survive.
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I think they will survive and probably thrive. There's a level of care I'm seeing now, personally, that wasn't there in the past. The future will tell.

My biggest beef at this point is being completely cut off from friends and family than ever before. Both bases in PR had ridiculously flexible schedules in the past. Combine that with flight-time and disconnect time (your phone and laptop is useless for 12 hours) is quadruple the other bases, PR just plain sucks butthole now.

I would rather fly 6 days a week in ANY other base at this point... PR makes CVG look like a vacation when you have to fly 5 days a week.
 
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UAL747400 said:
This back and forth is non-sense. Both feeder managers have directly expressed great concern over both companies futures if the feeders start to have worse issues than they have now, much less, failure.

If Mountain Air or Empire fail (both WAY smaller than Ameriflight), FedEx will have serious issues. If Martinair, Keylime, or Ameriflight fail, UPS will have serious problems. Non of them can pick up the slack of the other right now.

You may not like it or agree with it, but that is the situation in the freight world. The solution is an easy one regarding UPS and Ameriflight. I don't know who is resisting, but it doesn't seem like it's the pilots or their union. When talking to the pilots at least. "What's your hours? You fly those things by yourselves??? (Yes, even the 99 and 1900) You're a shoe-in here"
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If any feeder was going to fail, I'd guess it would be Wiggins. They are so incredibly short-staffed right now we have actually had to take a couple of their runs for the time being. I don't think FedEx is particularly satisfied with them at the moment. Not only that, but their route structure is the least favorable (depending on where you're from I suppose) of all the feeders. Who really wants to schlep a Caravan around the Northeast in icing for not so great pay/benefits/schedule.
 
UAL747400 said:
I think they will survive and probably thrive. There's a level of care I'm seeing now, personally, that wasn't there in the past. The future will tell.

My biggest beef at this point is being completely cut off from friends and family than ever before. Both bases in PR had ridiculously flexible schedules in the past. Combine that with flight-time and disconnect time (your phone and laptop is useless for 12 hours) is quadruple the other bases, PR just plain sucks butthole now.

I would rather fly 6 days a week in ANY other base at this point... PR makes CVG look like a vacation when you have to fly 5 days a week.
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Or you could leave and I dunno, not work 5 or 6 days with only 2 days off lol. Aim higher, if you're gonna work 6 days, get 6 days off.


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Apophis said:
If any feeder was going to fail, I'd guess it would be Wiggins. They are so incredibly short-staffed right now we have actually had to take a couple of their runs for the time being. I don't think FedEx is particularly satisfied with them at the moment. Not only that, but their route structure is the least favorable (depending on where you're from I suppose) of all the feeders. Who really wants to schlep a Caravan around the Northeast in icing for not so great pay/benefits/schedule.
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I was really surprised AMF bought Wiggins. I feel like they could have pressed then out of business like they did the others.

Is Empire smaller than AMF?


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Inverted said:
Depends on what you mean by waste. Waste is a strong word. You get turbine PIC time which is good, but the pull of that time in the logbook doesn't go as far as it used to, guys can easily get hired without it. If by waste, you mean come to AMF, spend 6 years, hopefully get hired at Allegiant, if not you go to Compass or another regional, then 5 years later hopefully SWA or a legacy picks you up, yea that could be a waste to go to AMF first. Lots of companies appreciate AMF, while there might be some companies that frown upon AMF, or not know who AMF is, the majority of companies will appreciate single pilot freight that can offer the next step in the career. The company I work for now didn't know who AMF was, nor made any comments to my flying there. They were more concerned with my previous jet experience. I was actually surprised.

Take jump seating, zed fairs and all that completely out of the equation, hell AMF has CASS and can jump seat on a bunch of airlines. Work QOL to work QOL, there is a big difference and that will never change. Having work rules, union representation, protection, and therefore them having your back, is huge.

QOL is a hurdle only a guaranteed seat at UPS can overcome. So if AMF can pull something like that off, I will eat my hat and I will be shocked at the same time. But it would be great to see for the survival of AMF, because they have to do something or they won't survive.
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I wouldn't say that the turbine PIC time is a waste necessarily. Upgrades at my last company was a year. But you needed atleast 1000 TPIC to upgrade. I had the PIC right off the bat. All would have needed was 350hrs as PIC on the jet I was flying to upgrade. It just so happened I resigned before my upgrade time hit.

I recently was assigned a PIC at my current company on the CL30. I was hired here not so much for my jet time (I only had around 300 jet when hired), but for my overall experience which mostly came from AMF. I was hired at my current company with about 5600hrs and about 3800 of it being TPIC.

So 1 year and 8 month removed from AMF, I went from making 55 to 60 grand flying the bro to making well over 6 figures flying as PIC on a super midsized jet.

That's not to say that there wasn't a bit of luck in my scenerio also though.
 
PIC multi turbine is never a waste. That time in the logbook is absolutely gold. What I meant was, that isn't the end all be all to getting hired at a legacy anymore.

TMC I think already dropped the 1,000TPIC requirement, if not they will need to.

The private jet sector is a great avenue from AMF. I consider myself pretty fortunate and successful in the private jet world and AMF helped for sure.

Nobody goes to a regional in hopes of flying a Beechjet or a Phenom for 135, but I would say 50% or more of those who go to AMF or freight feeders want to go 121. So the feeders have lost the demographic of coming there, to then go to the airlines. Sure you can go to Allegiant or Frontier but those are stepping stone jobs. Nobody is going from flight instructing to AMF, to Delta, hasn't happened, isn't happening, and probably won't happen. Looks like people are starting to understand that. Will that change? Sure it will, it will get to the way it was 25 years ago when you could go from flying a King Air to an 737 at SWA or UAL with no other relevant experience.

Getting hired is always a bit of luck but you had excellent qualifications to back it up. 135 TPIC is never a waste, it's a step below 121 TPIC but that's only if you want to go 121.
 
Inverted said:
PIC multi turbine is never a waste. That time in the logbook is absolutely gold. What I meant was, that isn't the end all be all to getting hired at a legacy anymore.

TMC I think already dropped the 1,000TPIC requirement, if not they will need to.

The private jet sector is a great avenue from AMF. I consider myself pretty fortunate and successful in the private jet world and AMF helped for sure.

Nobody goes to a regional in hopes of flying a Beechjet or a Phenom for 135, but I would say 50% or more of those who go to AMF or freight feeders want to go 121. So the feeders have lost the demographic of coming there, to then go to the airlines. Sure you can go to Allegiant or Frontier but those are stepping stone jobs. Nobody is going from flight instructing to AMF, to Delta, hasn't happened, isn't happening, and probably won't happen. Looks like people are starting to understand that. Will that change? Sure it will, it will get to the way it was 25 years ago when you could go from flying a King Air to an 737 at SWA or UAL with no other relevant experience.

Getting hired is always a bit of luck but you had excellent qualifications to back it up. 135 TPIC is never a waste, it's a step below 121 TPIC but that's only if you want to go 121.
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There were two other AMF guys in my INDOC class at TMC. They both left TMC shortly after me. One went to United and the other went to Spirit. I may have had a bit more total time and TPIC time than both of them. Neither had any jet time prior to TMC and likely left with around 300 hrs of it.

It's all about getting some experience and maneuverin your way through to get where you want to go.
 
It's all about who you know, and how many points your app has. Unfortunately, hours in a logbook are becoming a smaller piece of the puzzle. Job fairs and internal recs are the ticket. At least for 121 now days. I think NetJets was more concerned with hours and qualifications much like other 135 companies.
 
Inverted said:
It's all about who you know, and how many points your app has. Unfortunately, hours in a logbook are becoming a smaller piece of the puzzle. Job fairs and internal recs are the ticket. At least for 121 now days. I think NetJets was more concerned with hours and qualifications much like other 135 companies.
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NetJets stolet a bunch of TMC guys. A guy from my INDOC also left after I did. He's in the Phenom. Basically 6 out of 7 people in my class left withim a years time. The other two went to fly a Part 91 G550 and a Falcon 2000 for one of the Vegas casinos.

Basically @UAL747400 , get off your butt and go find a job. :)
 
KLB said:
NetJets stolet a bunch of TMC guys. A guy from my INDOC also left after I did. He's in the Phenom. Basically 6 out of 7 people in my class left withim a years time. The other two went to fly a Part 91 G550 and a Falcon 2000 for one of the Vegas casinos.

Basically @UAL747400 , get off your butt and go find a job. :)
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I am honestly shocked that TMC was able to stay afloat with the attrition they have seen, especially when you were there. It was arguably worse than AMF.
 
Inverted said:
I am honestly shocked that TMC was able to stay afloat with the attrition they have seen, especially when you were there. It was arguably worse than AMF.
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It's simple the aircraft leasing company the owns the airplane (which is owned by the same guy that owns the company) pulled the planes that weren't flying off the certificate and leased them to other operators.

The attrition barely affected TMC. They kept the company profitable enough to sell to another company while giving everyone raises and a better schedule before negotiations even started.
 
KLB said:
NetJets stolet a bunch of TMC guys. A guy from my INDOC also left after I did. He's in the Phenom. Basically 6 out of 7 people in my class left withim a years time. The other two went to fly a Part 91 G550 and a Falcon 2000 for one of the Vegas casinos.

Basically @UAL747400 , get off your butt and go find a job. :)
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There's a bit more to it than that... :)

I also won't screw this base over.
 
Inverted said:
I respect that. Just don't let pride get in the way of opportunity. You will be forgotten the day you leave AMF, and the machine will keep chugging.


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Same could be said for almost any company.... It's just business after all.
 
Inverted said:
I was really surprised AMF bought Wiggins. I feel like they could have pressed then out of business like they did the others.

Is Empire smaller than AMF?


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To answer the second question first, yes. Definitely. Empire's only got 5 or 6 ATRs and 30-something Cargovans, while Amflight's got 50-something 99s, 20-odd Pipers, I know there's 25 1900s and I think there's 10 or 12 (not sure how many are active vs parts ships) Bros. Amflight's a monster.

Regarding Wiggins, make no mistake in thinking it was sold out and split up. The company's management was actively hunting for a buyer, and couldn't get one sole taker for the whole pot (FBO/Airops [which itself is UPS and FedEx]). Auditors would come in, look at the hangars, go over to inspect the fuel trucks, come back a week later and watch the freight operation in action...It was nuts.

The advantage to Wiggins, though, was a well-loved fleet and guessing here a new maintenance base in the northeast since Buffalo's 400 miles away.

*ALSO, being employee-owned, most of the old dogs from Wiggins/Stead Aviation who'd been around for 800 years could now take the opportunity and retire with a handsome paycheck.
 
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