KLB
Well-Known Member
Agreed, but most do not go to a major. I had a 4 year AMFer riding in the jumpseat of my regional airliner the other day because they had recently been hired by us. Even with thousands of hours of TPIC time, they ended up coming to a regional. QOL considerations seem to be getting a lot of folks from the great 135 cargo airline to move over to the regionals. I get emails from my former AMF coworkers asking about coming over to my new airline all the time.
Yeah, attitude, mindset, making the best of it... all noble things. But we don't do this for charity. Something has to give over there if they want to retain quality pilots. Or maybe they don't really care about retention? And if that's the case, why should pilots go there at all?
I think the answer moving forward is "To get my 1500 hours so that I can go to a regional." Maybe I'll proved wrong.
And I should clarify, because I think I might talk too much crap about AMF in here, that my experience there made me sad for the state of an airline that I thought was a righteous place to go and fly. I saw a company culture that didn't really encourage loyalty. I saw a company that was the biggest and most recognizable name in the industry not doing much growth and actually shrinking in my region. I left there with a profound sense of relief of having escaped a bad situation.
It's a shame, and I really hope they can shift the company culture, starting with encouraging pilot loyalty and continuing by growing and improving the brand. Because right now, it seems like they're just content with being good enough.
Sorry, that went way longer than I had planned.
Even at only one year in the chieftain and the rest of the their four years in a turbine will not yield an amf'er with enough competitive turbine time with guys who have been captains at the regional for 8+ years. I've been at AMF "quite some time" and only barely eclipsing 5 grand with about 3600 of it being turbine PIC. So basically with the amount of time I have, I'm finally becoming competitive. Most of my friends who started at the regionalism at the same time I started at amf haven't even upgraded to captain yet.