GoJet, Yup, For Real, A thread about it.
- Thread starter jhugz
- Start date
This always rubbed me the wrong wat to. But, I guess flying boxes around single pilot is much more demanding in a C-210 than reciveing dual given in a CRJ. Not meant to be a slam on every FO (I am one too sometimes), but lets be honest, a guy with 1000TT at a regional isn't for the most part, ready for a CRJ. Keeping my brain at pace with a Lear can be a challenge sometimes. If I get behind, it can get hard to catch up.
Autothrust Blue
Welcome aboard the Washington State Ferries
It doesn't have to make sense to the pilots, it has to make sense to the beancounters. And obviously, it does. Even if it is backwards from any rational examination
ppragman
FLIPY FLAPS!
I don't personally think its a career ender outside the internet echo-chamber, but some people will find it fishy. Regardless, I met a GoJet Captain in PDX who went from flying boxes to GoJet and upgraded 6 months later during the boom times, he didn't have anything bad to say about the company. People on the web-averse tend to say a lot of things, frankly, I don't think it really matters that much. If it slices you out of a job later at a company that "won't hire gojetters" then is that really someplace you want to work? I doubt it. Not to throw fuel on the fire, but the internet is usually more vitriolic than reality, if it'll bump up the man's QoL or Pay (god forbid he's making that little) then more power to him. If it'll make him happier, then who am I to stand in the way. Somehow I doubt a regional airline job - any regional airline job - will do that.
Boris Badenov
Fortis Leader
Yes, Yes, a thousand times Yes. I'm not sure those companies really exist, so huggles' buddy may be better off going to Gojet, I can't say. But if you ask me whether I want to work for a company where a line is held firm, my answer is an unqualified "yes". Human drama, personal circumstance, etc are all totally real, and I'm human enough that I can understand why one might, in extremely dire circumstance choose to do something viewed as "dingy" by other pilots. The thing is, though, that "Teh Professionz" as a whole cannot afford to be merciful. Maybe the dude had to feed his kids, or someone put a gun to his head and said "work for Gojets or die". I can't be responsible for that. I can only consider what is efficacious for "Teh Professionz" as a whole. And what is most efficacious is sometimes unfair. To wit, sending the resume of anyone who ever worked for Freedom I or Gojets straight to the circular file. You're always known by your deeds, but you're also sometimes known by the company you keep. So I try to keep good company. (Present company excluded, obviously!)
Bandit_Driver
Gold Member
@Kristie, IDK how much info I want to give away, since he wanted to remain anonymous. I already gave away gender.Specific regional doesn't matter in my book, other than it has terrible work rules, and some of the lowest pay in the industry.
IF it s Great Mistakes don't do it, you can make more on unemployement.
The lear is actually harder than a push button RJ. A lear will eat most low time pilots for lunch and a few high time pilots that don't have any experience high performance jets. Hell it is the closet thing you can get to a fighter jet, specially the 20 series. Sea level to 410 in about 10 minutes or less with initial climb rates 10,000 fpm. But yes I do agree a lot of RJ FO are getting dual given and would kill themselves in single pilot IFR.
ppragman
FLIPY FLAPS!
Yes, Yes, a thousand times Yes. I'm not sure those companies really exist, so huggles' buddy may be better off going to Gojet, I can't say. But if you ask me whether I want to work for a company where a line is held firm, my answer is an unqualified "yes". Human drama, personal circumstance, etc are all totally real, and I'm human enough that I can understand why one might, in extremely dire circumstance choose to do something viewed as "dingy" by other pilots. The thing is, though, that "Teh Professionz" as a whole cannot afford to be merciful. Maybe the dude had to feed his kids, or someone put a gun to his head and said "work for Gojets or die". I can't be responsible for that. I can only consider what is efficacious for "Teh Professionz" as a whole. And what is most efficacious is sometimes unfair. To wit, sending the resume of anyone who ever worked for Freedom I or Gojets straight to the circular file. You're always known by your deeds, but you're also sometimes known by the company you keep. So I try to keep good company. (Present company excluded, obviously!)
But what is the most favorable outcome? Reasonably speaking, I don't see how ostracizing a pilot that goes to GoJets or any other company for that matter (barring actual scabs*) is efficacious for our profession or career field. All it does is promote suffering, and keep number of unemployed pilots from going down. What is so bad about the company kept at GoJets as to make someone "unemployable;" the experience gained will doubtless make the guy more competent on the CRJ (gross), and it will pay the bills - barely. I know of companies that won't hire "Alaska guys" because they've had one or two bad apples, there are corporate jobs that won't hire anyone who was prior 121, and there are airlines that think too much single pilot time is bad too. Those may be all valid reasons at some level or another (however tenuous) but to discriminate before even meeting the man is unfair and in my humble opinion is not an effective means of evaluating a potential candidate. You have to know more. Why did he go to GoJets? Considering the ongoing commotion on the series of tubes was the man aware of the ramifications of his decisions. If yes, then why did he choose to go to GoJets. The guy might have very valid reasons, and honestly, "I had low time, and this was a good job" might suffice for a reason under the right circumstances and right economy, but to shoot someone down before they even get a chance because of what someone said on the internet, or because someone worked for a company that screwed you over is asinine. I've had a company screw me over, but to say that I wouldn't hire someone who worked there and didn't get screwed over a little ridiculous. Three months after it happened - yeah maybe if I were hiring someone, but honestly, time heals all and even though it resulted in significant economic hardship for myself and my loved ones as a result of being "F'd in the A" by a crappy company, we're alright now and I wouldn't think that the people there were somehow less qualified to work at another company.
In the GoJet debate, here's what I see. One crappy company screwed over another crappy company. Lot's of people got screwed. Instead of blaming the companies and the dbags at the top who planned, initiated, and executed this scheme, once again, pilots blame each other. The problem is not the guys who went to work for this garbage operation, its that the garbage operation existed in the first place. Outside of actually scabbing, people can only be expected to do what's in their best interest - as wrong as that may be, unfettered self-advancement is glorified in this country, and its the root cause of many more problems than this. But to say that its reasonable "not hire" someone because they worked at someplace once is akin to saying "I won't ever hire someone who worked at Walmart." Walmart is a crappy company, with crappy labor relations, and they also screw over a wide array of other companies - which results in a lot of people getting screwed over. While I personally go out of my way to avoid shopping at Walmart, if I was hiring an accountant/clerk/manager/etc. basically a peon (and we pilots are peons in the corporate structure of a company) I'm not going to throw their resume in the circular file just because they worked at Walmart before if they're otherwise qualified for the position. Pilots are our own worst enemies. We blame the wrong people for the wrong problems.
*I'd like to propose Taylor's Law:
"Any topic on something previously addressed in the "Mind Numbing Topics Section" will invariably use the term 'scab' or for non-industry related topics, 'you're dangerous/Ima call the FSDO on uuuuuuu' before the thread is eventually flushed."
Couldn't have said it better myself.
Bigey
Well-Known Member
That's fine and all but if someone wants to stand in your way at an airline you further want to move to, then dont complain. Getting a job at a major is already hard as hell, do you want to take that chance that someone on the hiring board has a vendetta against GoJet?
Just think about this...theres a reason why GoJet is constantly hiring. Do you think it's just based on retirement? Moving on? Or never having enough applicants come through?
KLB
Well-Known Member
I'd tell your friend to instruct until he/she gets atleast 135 mins. And then if he/she wants to make a move two things will things will be insured. He/she will have enough time for a better regional and have an opportunity to get hired at a 135 company. The more options the better. If the regional furloughs, he'd have the flight time to do something else. The company has quite a few regional pilots who decided to stay rather than take recalls.
To piggyback to this too, why do people....in this case pilots......put SO MUCH time and effort into worrying and bitching about what everyone else is doing? Worry about whats on your own plate instead of worrying so much about how much everyone else is getting.
I agree. Pilots ARE their own worst enemies. Unity is a flipping joke. It's "unity!.....so long as I get mine first."
A150K
Well-Known Member
And this my friend is why I'd much rather fly 135 freight with a broken #2 nav radio than deal with the politics of the 121 side of things.
Nark
Macho Superpilot
I've flown both 135 and currently 121. As far as politics, it's exactly the same.
Most of the pilots I've met/ flown with are reasonable people. It's those who are able to remain anonymous that seem to be d-bags.
In psychology class I learned about the "mob mentality". Where a group of normal people get out of hand when they think they're unknown. The same applies to pilots as a whole in this industry. I've seen it in Canada as well as down here in the States.
Jhugz,
Do you get special bonus points when you post or respond to topics?
dasleben
That's just, like, your opinion, man
Eh, it comes out worse on the boards than it really is. The most vocal 121 guys here are naturally the most opinionated and fall very much on one end of the bell curve. The biggest threat at any airline, IMO, is apathy.
Rocketman99
Frozen Guppy Manipulator
Part of it is this. Said person, who may otherwise be a great pilot and dude, decides to go to GoJet. This is STILL an airline that was created as an alter ego carrier adverse to the careers of the TSA pilots. There is noe excuse for anyone at this juncture to not know that. He knows this going in.
Fast forward 10 years or whatever to maybe somewhere down the road we're both employed at major airline X. We're having some issues with management and it gets to the point that we're going to end up going on strike. Can I reasonably expect that he wont cross the line based on prior decisions? Maybe he wont, but going to GoJets tells me I can't trust the guy enough right off the bat.
As such, if I were sitting on the hiring board at airline X, I wouldn't hire you. I have enough other crap to worry about in day to day life as an airline grunt. I don't need to worry if I'm gonna get stabbed in the back down the line if push comes to shove. I do really believe in the bigger picture.
We may be our own worst enemies but we can still help to make it better in some way. Every major change started small somewhere.
WacoFan
Bigly
I thought some of the people here, even ATN pilot, said that going to GoJet now wasn't nearly as big a deal as it used to be - I think that mindset has started to change when all the furloughees went there. Certainly GoJet was created to get around scope at some airline, and to divide the pilot group as well. At this point, I'm not sure the stench is as bad though. Do people here hold furloughed UAL guys in contempt for taking a GoJet job? Just curious. I imagine if I were a UAL guy my retort would be "So what - all regionals suck anyway so what's the difference?".
Let me ask you this then.....where is the line drawn? Ok, so GoJets was created for what it was, and the original guys there are akin to the old Freedom A guys. As you remember, Freedom A was created as another form of alter ego to get around operating certificates, much like GoJets. Well, later down the line at Freedom, it became OK to work there, and those guys became known as Freedom B guys. Those guys had nothing to do with the original Freedom Airlines subsidiary and nothing was held against them for working at Freedom. My question then, is would someone who joins GoJet now, be considered a "GoJet B" guy? As he had nothing to do with original GoJet "plank owners", or GoJet A guys?
If the two (Freedom B/GoJet B) guys are the same, then would they be treated the same today? If not, why not, and why the different standard?
Am asking only because I want to try and insure all points of view are brought out for the said "friend" to read. Current info.
ppragman
FLIPY FLAPS!
No. Going to GoJet tells you none of that. You have no idea why the guy went, if he knows, if it really matters. Alter-Ego or not, you don't stab your fellow aviator in the back because of what you think he might do.
If I'm following your logic here, this is what I get:
Pilots who go to GoJet are more likely to scab if we go on strike.
This isn't really reasonable. Working for GoJet - for the 90 bazillionth time - doesn't constitute being a scab or any future scabbing preference. Again, the Walmart analogy is particularly apt. Just because someone chose to work at a company that is inherently crappy doesn't mean that the person working there is crappy. Now, if you ask the guy, "Hey, why did you work for GoJet, you know about the whole Alter-Ego thing right?" And he replies, "yeah, well, I went to work there to dick-over the guys I used to work with at TSA," then yeah. He doesn't deserve the time of day or a job.
Aviation is a funny industry, people are opinionated about other peoples bidness a little too much. To go further, this industry is kind of schizophrenic: you're told from the moment that you get on that the only things that matter are seniority and turbine PIC, then we collectively stomp all over people who don't follow the path we approve of. Its been 7 (seven) years since GoJet was founded, how long is long enough before it doesn't matter anymore? Ten years? Twenty years? I mean, hell, I understand that people got screwed, but what's the length of time that has to elapse. The WaterSki guys that planned on making a career at TSA were probably high enough in seniority that the situation didn't really effect them, and none of them got furloughed. According to another prominent aviation information source, there are still 30 people furloughed at TSA, but they've got classes planned for May, WTF over? What's the deal with that...blah blah blah, who cares.
To me, anyway, GoJet is such a small part of the picture of what's wrong with this industry. Concerning yourself over who you will or will not hire because they once worked there is missing the forest for the trees. There are a lot more pressing and important causes we should be championing, and a lot more important types of discriminators that should be used when hiring someone. Frankly, if a company decided that I was "un-hireable" because I worked at company X for awhile 5 years ago, then I don't particularly want to work there - no matter how awesome the schedule and pay is.