Picto Job Questions

daydreamer said:
I totally forgot about Northern states. Are they w-2 also?
Anyone heard of Sandhills aviation out of Nebraska?
Cannot find too much info on them.i like there option for choosing a schedule 4/2 or be on the road entire season
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It's owned by the former fleet manager of Air America. I never worked under him but during my time at AA Steve Sherwood was basically a running joke. "Hey this is Steve." But I don't know a thing about the operation at Sandhills Aviation
 
daydreamer said:
I totally forgot about Northern states. Are they w-2 also?
Anyone heard of Sandhills aviation out of Nebraska?
Cannot find too much info on them.i like there option for choosing a schedule 4/2 or be on the road entire season
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If I remember right, Northern States is 1099 as well.
 
Cory Trevor said:
It's owned by the former fleet manager of Air America. I never worked under him but during my time at AA Steve Sherwood was basically a running joke. "Hey this is Steve." But I don't know a thing about the operation at Sandhills Aviation
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My voicemail used to sound like the voicemail scene from Office Space but replace "This is Bill Lumbergh" with "Hey, Steve, Air America".
 
JordanD said:
Ah, interesting. We had a former NSAer at Air America with us and I thought he said that was the case but I could have been wrong.
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Nope, and they paid tax on the end of season $1k bonus as well.

Nick is a quirky guy to work for; just don't be an idiot, fly your butt off, and leave. You can also make more money at NSA based on their per diem structure vs. having hotel/transport paid by company like the other picto vendors. I never touched my paychecks and never spent the entire PD (save for a night or two when you relocate to an expensive area before another pilot arrives to your location)
It ends up becoming a game, "how little money can I spend today so I can keep that tax free PD in my bank account"

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
 
bimmerphile said:
Nope, and they paid tax on the end of season $1k bonus as well.

Nick is a quirky guy to work for; just don't be an idiot, fly your butt off, and leave. You can also make more money at NSA based on their per diem structure vs. having hotel/transport paid by company like the other picto vendors. I never touched my paychecks and never spent the entire PD (save for a night or two when you relocate to an expensive area before another pilot arrives to your location)
It ends up becoming a game, "how little money can I spend today so I can keep that tax free PD in my bank account"

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
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You got a $1000 bonus?! What?!
 
Landcare pays a $2000 bonus at the end of the year. You can get an extra $25 a day if you double up. W-2.
 
7 months: 560Hr ASEL, 328Hr 135 XC, 259Hr 121 XC, 1.3 in a Redbird, Company paid for my IPC in a sim before instrument currency expired. The 121 XC could have been more but I was just counting 135 time so I let a bunch of it slide. Sim time is reimbursed at the end of the season. You don't get it back if you quit on them. You can get night time with them but they want it pre-dawn.

This was in a C6 rig. I saw online that folks were getting more time in the N5 but I think I was pretty lucky. I did sit over a week in some places waiting for weather to clear. With the 50 Gal tanks I would fly about 5.5-5.8, quick turn and fly another 3-4 hours when the window would permit. A lot of folks did not have the ass to do that. The bosses were not driving for us to fly that long either but I liked getting the work done.

Bob and Simon are both great to work for. They have both been doing this a very long time and are extremely helpful. One gripe you will hear is that they micromanage. By this I mean you call them before you take off and then when you land. If you are in a group, it is just one person calling for the group. Why on God's green Earth do people bitch about that? Maybe it is my military background but if I was in charge, you'd be calling me. And, they are both extremely pleasant to talk to, so, BONUS!

There is no push to sleep in a crappy hotel. I stayed in places like the Drury or Residents Inn and got free dinners. Some folks like the Candlewood but to me that was a small step up from a Value Place. I'm in a hotel, I shouldn't have to pay extra for daily housekeeping. I tried to keep it in the Marriott chain and have 250000 points now.

I've spoken with Nick at Northerstates and Bryan at Skylens as well has employees from both companies and I don't think you could go wrong with either of them as well. Landcare gave me an offer first and I accepted right after the interview. Besides, I think the lodging situation fit me better with Landcare but I'm 49 and a 22 year vet, I'm not doubling up!

Would I go back for a second season? No but I'm married and old. If I was single and young, maybe. Would I recommend working for them, Hell Yes.

One piece of advice I would give is always be honest. If they ask you "will you fly the whole season" and you tell them yes but you know you are going to walk as soon as you reach some hours milestone, you just suck. As Tony Montana said,
"All I got in this world is my balls and my word and I don't break either of 'em for nobody!"
 
JordanD said:
My voicemail used to sound like the voicemail scene from Office Space but replace "This is Bill Lumbergh" with "Hey, Steve, Air America".
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Ah yes, the "Hey, Steve Sherwood, Air America" catchphrase. His voice was almost exactly like that of Kronk from "The Emperor's New Groove". Of course, I was only at AA for the very end of the Sherwood Administration so I didn't have that for the whole season.

Cory Trevor said:
It's owned by the former fleet manager of Air America. I never worked under him but during my time at AA Steve Sherwood was basically a running joke. "Hey this is Steve." But I don't know a thing about the operation at Sandhills Aviation
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I haven't heard anything about Sandhills Aviation either. I suppose it is likely they are 1099 since Sherwood came from Air America, but who knows. According to their website they have 8 Cessna 172s now and expect "significant growth", which is pretty impressive since I believe they just started operations in December. http://www.sandhillsaviation.com/index.html

I would definitely advise anyone interested in Air America to look into the other vendors.
 
1wrangler said:
So AA has their pilots on 1099s but requires them to sign a training contract? That's truly wrong.

The IRS will freak out when the figure out these pilots are being paid as 1099 employees. It's not legit.
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Yes, it's a total scam, and it's not really a training contract since you have to sign another one if you stay past the first season, even though your only had to be trained when you started. The fact that you're a 1099 contractor probably makes the early termination fee more enforceable, as training contracts with W-2 employees do not hold up in court in some jurisdictions.

I'm not sure if the IRS will "freak out" per se, Air America has been doing this for years now and has gotten away with it. Some pilots have been slapped with back taxes, though (which I didn't know about until this thread, as it hasn't happened to anyone who was there during my time there...yet).
 
Yakob said:
Yes, it's a total scam, and it's not really a training contract since you have to sign another one if you stay past the first season, even though your only had to be trained when you started. The fact that you're a 1099 contractor probably makes the early termination fee more enforceable, as training contracts with W-2 employees do not hold up in court in some jurisdictions.

I'm not sure if the IRS will "freak out" per se, Air America has been doing this for years now and has gotten away with it. Some pilots have been slapped with back taxes, though (which I didn't know about until this thread, as it hasn't happened to anyone who was there during my time there...yet).
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Well, by "freak out" I mean that they will demand back taxes from AA and they should ensure that pilots are treated as W2 employees from now on. The reason this hasn't happened yet is because government organizations can be inefficient. Just because they've been doing it that way for years doesn't mean it's right. It's nearly impossible to work as a pilot as an independent contractor. Don't take my word for it, check out 1099 employment on the IRS website.
 
1wrangler said:
Well, by "freak out" I mean that they will demand back taxes from AA and they should ensure that pilots are treated as W2 employees from now on. The reason this hasn't happened yet is because government organizations can be inefficient. Just because they've been doing it that way for years doesn't mean it's right. It's nearly impossible to work as a pilot as an independent contractor. Don't take my word for it, check out 1099 employment on the IRS website.
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Oh I believe you about pilots not qualifying as legitimate independent contractors in this case, I just doubt that the company Air America itself will get in any sort of legal trouble over it if they haven't already. AA should be able to afford to hire good enough lawyers or enough bribe money to get out of paying any back-taxes.
 
Yakob said:
Oh I believe you about pilots not qualifying as legitimate independent contractors in this case, I just doubt that the company Air America itself will get in any sort of legal trouble over it if they haven't already. AA should be able to afford to hire good enough lawyers or enough bribe money to get out of paying any back-taxes.
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Meh, I don't think that AA is the kind of powerhouse that can convince a court that the IRS is wrong about their clear employee classification guidelines.

Anyways..., not looking to start an Internet squabble, just wanted to point out to people that the IRS likely wouldn't agree with how AA classifies their employees. :)
 
1wrangler said:
Meh, I don't think that AA is the kind of powerhouse that can convince a court that the IRS is wrong about their clear employee classification guidelines.

Anyways..., not looking to start an Internet squabble, just wanted to point out to people that the IRS likely wouldn't agree with how AA classifies their employees. :)
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You are right about that, and I agree completely that the IRS wouldn't agree with AA's classification of their employees. Not looking for a squabble either :). I'm just not sure how likely the IRS would be to look into AA thoroughly enough to enforce it.
 
Yakob said:
You are right about that, and I agree completely that the IRS wouldn't agree with AA's classification of their employees. Not looking for a squabble either :). I'm just not sure how likely the IRS would be to look into AA thoroughly enough to enforce it.
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They've certainly made enough effort to figure out they want an extra piddly amount of money from me every year, after the fact. So you never know.
 
JordanD said:
They've certainly made enough effort to figure out they want an extra piddly amount of money from me every year, after the fact. So you never know.
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Unfortunate that it took this, but I'm guessing the crash and resulting liability issues will blow the 1099 thing wide open.
 
JordanD said:
They've certainly made enough effort to figure out they want an extra piddly amount of money from me every year, after the fact. So you never know.
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And that makes it especially odd that they haven't gone after the company itself for the 1099 scam. It suggests that AA either has good enough lawyers to prevent a judgment against them, or that the IRS has a policy of not going after the "employers" in cases like these but only holds the contractor accountable. It seems like the latter may be the case as I have heard of other situations where people who took 1099 jobs were slapped with back-taxes but the "employer" seemed to get away with it.
 
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