Colgan and the Q400

av8sean

av8sean

New Member
There was a thread a while ago about Colgan hiring into the Q400... Which seems unlikely according to what recent new hires are getting and the fact that the Q400 isn't coming til the end of the year. Any idea if they will eventually hire into the Q400? I heard alot of Colgan people aren't thrilled about losing their day trips and moving to NJ and probably won't bid the Q400 anyway.
 
I think we will end up hiring FO's for the Q pretty soon because it takes about 3 months to get from a sucessful interview to being on the line. Also, it doesn't make sense for most FO's to transition to the Q and be paid the same when they can wait to upgrade in their current airplane and then maybe transition as a captain, thus earning two type ratings.
 
The reason many are not bidding the Q has absolutely nothing to do with day trips and moving to NJ.

It has everything to do with the completely insulting pay-rate for a 74 seat aircraft.

The rates are not even competitive for a 50 seat aircraft...now add 24 more seats and you might as well fly for free. :(

But hey, somebody's gonna fly it. :rolleyes:
 
Cruise said:
The reason many are not bidding the Q has absolutely nothing to do with day trips and moving to NJ.

It has everything to do with the completely insulting pay-rate for a 74 seat aircraft.

The rates are not even competitive for a 50 seat aircraft...now add 24 more seats and you might as well fly for free. :(

But hey, somebody's gonna fly it. :rolleyes:
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Which makes the down vote of ALPA even more puzzling...
 
This is why I went with Piedmont. At the time of interview, long upgrade times. But they have work rules and darn good ones as well as a reasonable pay scale. When they asked me (Colgan) why I wouldn't be attending class I told them financial reasons prevented it. They had definatley heard that one before.

I also had my Colgan interview the morning after the vote failed by 4. Interesting attitudes displayed around Flight Safety that day.
 
av8sean said:
Which makes the down vote of ALPA even more puzzling...
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Nah, I can explain the "down" vote. Basically, there were at least 4 people that assumed it would pass by a landslide. Thinking that, they didn't bother to vote one way or the other. Well, the way the election is set up, a non vote is actually a "no" vote, but a lot (and I'd actually wager MOST) pilots in the airline industry aren't aware of that. They believe that (like most elections) if the number of "yes" votes outweight the number of "no" votes, it's done. The election process laid out by the RLA doesn't set it up that way.

Granted, there probably were several that knew exactly what they were doing, and they voted "no" by not voting at all. So, we'll probably never really know if ALPA missed Colgan by 4 votes for real or if apathy was the culprit.
 
av8sean said:
Which makes the down vote of ALPA even more puzzling...
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Yeah, I don't get it either.

We just got a letter from Mike C. the other day saying "management was never against representation for us....just against ALPA." Hmmm, yeah they'd rather have some do-nothing in-house group that can talk all they want but have no power to do anything. Perfect "representation" for the management group. :(
 
Cruise said:
It has everything to do with the completely insulting pay-rate for a 74 seat aircraft.
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Absolutely. Anybody with any sort of sense can see that you'd make a lot more money somewhere else flying 50-seaters. Colgan needs to realize that before more people leave.

I'll say this, if Colgan threw us some bones here with the Q pay, and I mean Q FO pay as well, then I would really love to stay. There is some uncertainty too for us FO's that are interested in transitioning to the Q. One of those is, upgrade. IF some sort of merger happens with PCL, how would that affect the FO's waiting to upgrade.

This is my biggest concern right now. Is that IF I go to the Q400, and do NOT upgrade within at least 2 years, the FO pay scale is not structured for me to survive.

I did hear some good news last week though. I guess it was mentioned in the weekly conference call that we will have a Beech fleet (although small) for at least another year. That got me pretty excited because at the rate we're picking up flight time over here, I could seriously be in a position to upgrade in a year. In that case, I would love to continue with the plan to upgrade on the Beech, then transition Captain on the Q when the time comes. :)
 
It's sad, but in my recent new hire class- I know of 3 that said they would have voted "NO" because "Colgan isn't the type of company that needs a union".

I guess they didn't get the memo about PCL buying us.
 
Cruise said:
Yeah, I don't get it either.

We just got a letter from Mike C. the other day saying "management was never against representation for us....just against ALPA." Hmmm, yeah they'd rather have some do-nothing in-house group that can talk all they want but have no power to do anything. Perfect "representation" for the management group. :(
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Right. Like they would have acted differently if you guys were trying to get the Teamsters on property instead. They want a student council, not a national recognized union.
 
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