got a call from MESA

D_R_ATC

D_R_ATC

New Member
I just got a call from MESA. They are inviting me to interview with them next month..Does anyone know anything about the company. Anybody currently flying for them?..and if so, how is it?

any comments will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.:D
 
This ought to get some good replies...I believe we have a few people here working for them.

Good luck on sifting through all the info that I'm sure will be presented.;)
 
D_R_ATC said:
I just got a call from MESA. They are inviting me to interview with them next month..Does anyone know anything about the company. Anybody currently flying for them?..and if so, how is it?

any comments will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.:D
Click to expand...

Ill save you the trouble of the search as you will be busy reading:

http://forums.jetcareers.com/search.php?searchid=645353

just a quick couple of highlights:

senior MESA CA left for charter biz

another member had a class date with MESA and cancelled. wouldn't do it. said member is now in class with Xjet.

Enjoy.


YMMV
 
If I should not post this from another forum then by all means mods, delete it. However I figured it's about the same as posting an article, which is acceptable, so here it is:


"I recently flew a 4 day with a guy who left when he had finally had enough after 2 years there. Every leg I would say, "tell me another Mesa story" I figured he would run out eventually, but he never did. It was amazing how bad life is there.

MX--he said he flew an entire 4 day with his MFD missing. Not just broken, but missing-- 4 days with an 8"x10" hole in the cockpit that every boarding passenger could see.

MX-- said they once gave a plane to a crew, said fly it to ___ airport, park it at ___ FBO for contract mx work. So the crew does what they're told, then the captain goes home and his phone rings for the next 3 days. But he didn't dare answer it for fear of a trip on his days off. Turns out no one knew where the plane went. They were just calling to find out where it was. The plane went missing for 3 days.

Scheduling-- Phone would ring and ring on days off for junior assignment. They would never give up. They would call 50-60 times a day, so you sometimes just have to turn off your phone. He said the chief pilots would ride on the employee parking lot bus and tell people they have a junior assigned trip, you're not going home, go back to the terminal. In order to avoid this, he said you would call a friend to pick you up at a secret pickup place and drive you straight to your car to avoid getting slapped with a trip before you could get to your car and go home.

Hiring-- this FO said he flew with a captain who got turned down for a job in the late 90's, but this guy found out where/when the B1900 class was starting so he just showed up. They had no records on him, but he said the paperwork must have got lost or something. So someone made up some employment papers, figuring the stuff must have been lost or misplaced somewhere along the way. He went through training, completed IOE, upgraded, and eventually ended up at SWA, I think. He hired himself."
 
"Turns out no one knew where the plane went. They were just calling to find out where it was. The plane went missing for 3 days."

HAHA...now that's funny.

Working for JO has to suck bad and Mesa has a bad rep, compared to the other regionals. I think it's really up to the individual to decide if working there is a good idea, or not.

For the record, I've had four friends work their way up via Mesa. One was Delta (furlouged, not going back), one moved on to America West, one moved on to UPS, and one is a Dash 8 Capt. He's looking to move on but he's got the 121 TPIC thing taken care of. He's got some great stories, too, no love lost for JO, but it is what it is. He could have left for another regional, early on, but it was more worth it to stick around. Some people can put up with it and some can't, I guess.
 
I have a buddy who works for Mesa, so far he said they have been alright.

He has told me some horror stories relating to a buddy of his though.

I guess its the luck of the draw.
 
Nick said:
Hiring-- this FO said he flew with a captain who got turned down for a job in the late 90's, but this guy found out where/when the B1900 class was starting so he just showed up. They had no records on him, but he said the paperwork must have got lost or something. So someone made up some employment papers, figuring the stuff must have been lost or misplaced somewhere along the way. He went through training, completed IOE, upgraded, and eventually ended up at SWA, I think. He hired himself."
Click to expand...

HA! Reminds me of Willy Mays Hayes in Major League.
 
Hiring-- this FO said he flew with a captain who got turned down for a job in the late 90's, but this guy found out where/when the B1900 class was starting so he just showed up. They had no records on him, but he said the paperwork must have got lost or something. So someone made up some employment papers, figuring the stuff must have been lost or misplaced somewhere along the way. He went through training, completed IOE, upgraded, and eventually ended up at SWA, I think. He hired himself."
Click to expand...


WOW!!!!:yup: Now that's what I call taking matters into your own hands.
 
Is a totally missing MFD allowed per the MEL? If not, the CA shouldn't have taken the plane. If it IS allowed.....damn. I can't believe the FAA signed off on that.

As for "hiring yourself," that could have some serious security ramifications if the background check was just assumed to have been done.

Nice thing about here is the only people that can JM or extend you are crew scheduling. If the CP's on the bus and says I've got another trip, I'd be saying "Great. Tell scheduling to call me and notify me. We'll see if I answer the phone now that I'm released from duty."
 
Nick said:
MX--he said he flew an entire 4 day with his MFD missing. Not just broken, but missing-- 4 days with an 8"x10" hole in the cockpit that every boarding passenger could see.
Click to expand...

That was a 1900 I bet!

MX-- said they once gave a plane to a crew, said fly it to ___ airport, park it at ___ FBO for contract mx work. So the crew does what they're told, then the captain goes home and his phone rings for the next 3 days. But he didn't dare answer it for fear of a trip on his days off. Turns out no one knew where the plane went. They were just calling to find out where it was. The plane went missing for 3 days.
Click to expand...

If he answered the phone there would be no problem! By the way the same thing happened to me when I was at Eagle - we left a Shorts at Baton Rouge.

I always answered my phone. I was able to refuse it if it was a hardship, but since I always tried to help them out they remembered it.

Scheduling-- Phone would ring and ring on days off for junior assignment. They would never give up. They would call 50-60 times a day, so you sometimes just have to turn off your phone. He said the chief pilots would ride on the employee parking lot bus and tell people they have a junior assigned trip, you're not going home, go back to the terminal. In order to avoid this, he said you would call a friend to pick you up at a secret pickup place and drive you straight to your car to avoid getting slapped with a trip before you could get to your car and go home.
Click to expand...

Again, certain people were on the "call till they answer" list. Others had not made enemies in Crew Tracking. One thing different about Mesa from Eagle or Midway for example, was that CT remembered when you did favors and often returned them. At the other airlines they would have sudden memory losses.

Hiring-- this FO said he flew with a captain who got turned down for a job in the late 90's, but this guy found out where/when the B1900 class was starting so he just showed up. They had no records on him, but he said the paperwork must have got lost or something. So someone made up some employment papers, figuring the stuff must have been lost or misplaced somewhere along the way. He went through training, completed IOE, upgraded, and eventually ended up at SWA, I think. He hired himself."
Click to expand...

That's a great urban legend but it is a false story. The guy was in my class, made it all the way to aircraft training before it was realized he was NOT hired. He was asked to leave the property. I know, because I was in the Jax hangar that night that Ken Mayfield figured it out.

Of course the story went around that he stayed with company, upgraded to 1900 captain after a year and made it to Southwest in 6 months, which is of course impossible, because at that time SW required 1000 PIC Turbine. (You can't get 1000 hrs in 6 months!!!)

Good story I suppose, and often repeated.

Most of the complaints people have listed here happened to me at other companies as well.

Let me make it clear that I am not denying that the Mesa Crew Scheduling and Tracking department is not incompetent. They are.

However, I never felt that hostility that I got at Eagle and Midway from the Mesa personnel.

The Mesa folks were ok, within their limits. It's foolish to think that college interns can run a company, but Mesa does not stand alone here. It doesn't help any that they are HUGE and have crews spread all over the country.

Mesa can be a good experience of it can be a nightmare. A lot of that depends on YOUR attitude when you come up against hardship and unfairness, which will happen just about anywhere you go - in life!
 
Haha, good stuff.

I was jumpseating on a MESA flight a while back. I went to greet the CA...

CA: Hi, how many hours do you have?

Me: About 1300 or so

CA: How would you like to fly a shiny regional jet?

Me: Oh, um, looks like I need to go find my seat in the back... thanks for the ride!
 
Mr_Creepy said:
That was a 1900 I bet!



If he answered the phone there would be no problem! By the way the same thing happened to me when I was at Eagle - we left a Shorts at Baton Rouge.

I always answered my phone. I was able to refuse it if it was a hardship, but since I always tried to help them out they remembered it.



Again, certain people were on the "call till they answer" list. Others had not made enemies in Crew Tracking. One thing different about Mesa from Eagle or Midway for example, was that CT remembered when you did favors and often returned them. At the other airlines they would have sudden memory losses.



That's a great urban legend but it is a false story. The guy was in my class, made it all the way to aircraft training before it was realized he was NOT hired. He was asked to leave the property. I know, because I was in the Jax hangar that night that Ken Mayfield figured it out.

Of course the story went around that he stayed with company, upgraded to 1900 captain after a year and made it to Southwest in 6 months, which is of course impossible, because at that time SW required 1000 PIC Turbine. (You can't get 1000 hrs in 6 months!!!)

Good story I suppose, and often repeated.

Most of the complaints people have listed here happened to me at other companies as well.

Let me make it clear that I am not denying that the Mesa Crew Scheduling and Tracking department is not incompetent. They are.

However, I never felt that hostility that I got at Eagle and Midway from the Mesa personnel.

The Mesa folks were ok, within their limits. It's foolish to think that college interns can run a company, but Mesa does not stand alone here. It doesn't help any that they are HUGE and have crews spread all over the country.

Mesa can be a good experience of it can be a nightmare. A lot of that depends on YOUR attitude when you come up against hardship and unfairness, which will happen just about anywhere you go - in life!
Click to expand...

Good post to hear on the opposite side of the fence. :nana2:

A family friend of ours went to mesa, did his thing, now he's sitting at America West (US Airways).

I guess it's all up to you, but like ANY airline there are ups and downs of it..
 
Ornstein blames Mesa share loss on ExpressJet woes

By David Mildenberg / Bloomberg News

Shares of commuter airlines Mesa Air Group Inc., the parent company of Hawaii interisland carrier go!, and ExpressJet Holdings Inc. declined more than 5 percent yesterday on investor concerns over revenue and hiring pressures.
Mesa shares traded at the lowest price since 2005 after the Air Line Pilots Association said almost 400 pilots have left over contract issues, prompting "flight delays and cancellations."
ExpressJet share prices fell to the lowest ever after an arbitration panel ordered a $14 million rate reduction.
Fees received by the regional carriers to fly short routes for larger airlines have declined as the industry cut costs to stem losses. Larger carriers including Delta Air Lines Inc. and Northwest Airlines Corp. are starting to hire pilots after trimming their payrolls while in bankruptcy.
"We think staffing and attrition are likely to continue to be issues for Mesa since major airlines are hiring and we think Mesa faces concerns about future growth," James Corridore, a Standard & Poor's analyst in New York, wrote yesterday.
He rated the shares "sell."
Mesa, based in Phoenix, also flies as Mesa Airlines and provides commuter services as Delta Connection for Delta, US Airways Express for US Airways Group Inc. and United Express for UAL Corp.'s United Airlines.
Houston-based ExpressJet carries passengers for Continental Airlines Inc. The Aug. 2 arbitrator ruling cut the rates that Continental pays ExpressJet, said Robert Mann, a consultant with R.W. Mann & Co. Inc. in Port Washington, New York. That action also colored investors' views of Mesa, he said.
"I think all of the regionals are being painted with the same brush as ExpressJet, which I think is inappropriate," Mesa CEO Jonathan Ornstein said.
ExpressJet spokeswoman Kristy Nicholas said the reduced compensation of $14 million from Continental is "immaterial" compared with 2006 revenue of $1.7 billion.
 
Mr_Creepy said:
That was a 1900 I bet!
Click to expand...

1900's have 8" x10" MFD's? :D

Mesa schedulers/dispatchers may not have had a lot animosity when you worked for them, but I think things may have changed a bit. I've jumpseated on Mesa quite a bit in the last couple of months, and the animosity the pilots I've talked to is unreal. They seemed to be elated at the rumot that Mesa will shut down it's US operations within the next year, and this was simply due to the total lack of respect given to them by management, scheduling, and dispatch.
 
zmiller4 said:
1900's have 8" x10" MFD's? :D

Mesa schedulers/dispatchers may not have had a lot animosity when you worked for them, but I think things may have changed a bit. I've jumpseated on Mesa quite a bit in the last couple of months, and the animosity the pilots I've talked to is unreal. They seemed to be elated at the rumot that Mesa will shut down it's US operations within the next year, and this was simply due to the total lack of respect given to them by management, scheduling, and dispatch.
Click to expand...

I agree after talking to some Mesa people.

Not to discount Mr. Creepy's experience at all, but from those I've talked to who worked at Mesa recently, the general consensus at the company was that things really are getting worse by the day. What may have been tolerable in the past is progressively getting worse and less tolerable.

A 24 hour layover can retroactively count as a Mesa pilot's one day off required in 7.
 
I had an MFD MEL'd the other day. We brought the airplane in on an overnight perfectly fine. The next morning we get it and its MEL'd. Maintenance guy shows up with the book, he said as he was taxing back it started making funny colors and then went black. They did have any more so he MEL'd it. This was on the EMB and it can be done but the captains MFD has to be working and its good to go.
 
crashmbern said:
I had an MFD MEL'd the other day. We brought the airplane in on an overnight perfectly fine. The next morning we get it and its MEL'd. Maintenance guy shows up with the book, he said as he was taxing back it started making funny colors and then went black. They did have any more so he MEL'd it. This was on the EMB and it can be done but the captains MFD has to be working and its good to go.
Click to expand...

I had the same thing a week ago. I was surprised it is permitted, even onto an approach with IMC.
 
I can see the FO's MFD being MEL'd, but REMOVED entirely is what was mentioned. THAT I have a hard time believing. Leave it there and put the little orange dot next to it until it's fixed, but don't take the friggin' thing out.

I'm pretty sure Mesa was an okay place pre-9/11. NWA and Delta had killer contracts then, too. Things change fast, though. I think some of the problems stem from scheduling bullying pilots, though. They try that here, and if you stand up to them and know the contract, there's not much they can do to you. If the CP can wait on the bus to JM pilots in Mesa's contract, then that SERIOUSLY needs to be changed. Otherwise, tell 'em it's not legal, and they're creating a hostile work environment. When they threaten to miss trip you, tell them "Fine. Next time we talk, it'll be in a conference call with a union rep."
 
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