kellwolf
Piece of Trash
Figured this was as good a forum to toss this in as any. I know my last couple of play-by-play threads were in the Member Announcements, so mods, feel free to move this wherever it fits best.
First off, I'll preface this with the standard disclaimer of all opinions are mine alone and do not represent those of jetBlue. This is essentially going to be a "day in the life" in training, so I'm hoping to impart a general sense of what it feels like along with some (hopefully) entertainment. I may from time to time compare it to other airlines that I've been employed with. It's not necessarily meant as a dig on any of the airlines mentioned. It's simply a compare and contrast. So, without further ado....
Things first started off last night. The entire class was invited to a local eatery close to the hotel we were all staying in. Yes, even the local boy (me) got a hotel room paid for by the company. Might come in handy when I need to sequester myself for study. The hotel itself is an extended stay suite hotel. Rooms have full kitchens, spacious and free breakfast every morning. Now, back to the dinner. Lots of flight ops management was there. A few chief pilots, the system chief, a few of the higher ups, reps from Pro Standards (who happened to be in town for a training seminar and were invited) as well as students from the class ahead of us. Basically, it was an informal Q&A session where people could be themselves. Think NJC but with less alcohol and an actual job offer. We also got our bid sheets. I was more senior than I thought I would be in my class of 12, and there's a mix of A320 and E190 slots available for us. The A320 slots were all in JFK, and the E190 slots were in BOS and JFK.
So, moving on to the first official day of training: orientation. Early show at 7 am in order to get the HR paperwork out of the way. Also got pics taken for our IDs. We were in a group orientation that included us pilots, airport operations, ground operations, tech ops (aka MX) and various support crewmembers from other locations. It started out with an intro to jetBlue and a run down of some terms that are unique to the airline. For example, we don't have "passengers," we have customers. No one is an employee, we're all crewmembers. After about three walls full of management representatives introduced themselves, it was time for all of us new hires to talk a bit about ourselves. After a short break, the CEO, Dave Barger, spent a lot of time going over where jetBlue came from, and (more importantly) where jetBlue is going and how we're going to get there. After Dave, Rob Maruster, the COO, talked about the values and how they apply at jetBlue. After his module, there was a discussion on the routes that included how jetBlue decides what markets and the every popular "Why don't you go to XYZ?" conversation. Break for lunch (they paid for it, too). Back from lunch, we talked some more about the values as well as the government affairs. Venezuela and Cuba are looking good for the future if the political hurdles can be overcome. After that, a rep from marketing talked about how important maintaining the brand is. The surprised of the day (for me) was when someone from finance actually broke down how jetBlue makes (or loses) money and showed how close we can cut it with some real world examples. Lots of charts in this section, and you really get a sense of how badly an airline's financials can get wrecked just with a small increase of fuel costs. Slight wrap up, and we're back for day two of orientations tomorrow. Looks like it's going to be mostly benefits in the morning, and the different groups go their separate ways in the afternoon.
Couple of things that were very different about this orientation than my three previous airlines. First, they invited our significant others to come with us. It's sort of a "You're getting hired here, so your family is getting hired here" type thing. My wife isn't big on airline stuff at all, and she really enjoyed it. Said she learned a lot. Tomorrow, they're actually putting the SOs in the sims for a while! Another thing that was different is I've NEVER had an airline more or less tell me the whole business model the way jetBlue did today. It was almost like they were trying to pitch it to investors the way they laid everything out. I guess if I think about it, I'm investing my career with them, so it makes sense. From route selection to marketing to finances, no airline I've worked for (even Southwest) put it all out there like I heard today. Coming from Pinnacle, where every decision seemed like it was made by some cabal of people in a secret society that feared sharing any kind of info, it was a very refreshing change. I'm hopeful that the free flow of info I saw today continues past orientation and continues like that on the line. It makes it so much easier to achieve the airline's goals if every crewmember is on the same page. Finally, I've been at orientations where the CEO was present for about an hour and gone. My new hire orientation at ExpressJet, Jim Ream was there for about an hour. Trenary was around for about 45 minutes at Pinnacle. We saw Herb in the hallway at Southwest. Dave Barger? He was in and out of the room all day long. For the CEO of a major airline to spend that much time in a new hire orientation class was pretty impressive to me. Taking into account there are still recovery ops from Sandy as well as issues with the current nor'easter going on, and it was more impressive he could take the time to be there. I wasn't expecting him to be able to make it down at all, much less spend most of the day there.
First impressions: I'm very happy with the choice to come here so far. Looks like I'm going to wind up getting exactly what I thought I would as far as aircraft and base goes, and thus far everything is as advertised or better. Health insurance isn't all that, but we'll find out more on that in the benefits briefing tomorrow, I'm sure.
First off, I'll preface this with the standard disclaimer of all opinions are mine alone and do not represent those of jetBlue. This is essentially going to be a "day in the life" in training, so I'm hoping to impart a general sense of what it feels like along with some (hopefully) entertainment. I may from time to time compare it to other airlines that I've been employed with. It's not necessarily meant as a dig on any of the airlines mentioned. It's simply a compare and contrast. So, without further ado....
Things first started off last night. The entire class was invited to a local eatery close to the hotel we were all staying in. Yes, even the local boy (me) got a hotel room paid for by the company. Might come in handy when I need to sequester myself for study. The hotel itself is an extended stay suite hotel. Rooms have full kitchens, spacious and free breakfast every morning. Now, back to the dinner. Lots of flight ops management was there. A few chief pilots, the system chief, a few of the higher ups, reps from Pro Standards (who happened to be in town for a training seminar and were invited) as well as students from the class ahead of us. Basically, it was an informal Q&A session where people could be themselves. Think NJC but with less alcohol and an actual job offer. We also got our bid sheets. I was more senior than I thought I would be in my class of 12, and there's a mix of A320 and E190 slots available for us. The A320 slots were all in JFK, and the E190 slots were in BOS and JFK.
So, moving on to the first official day of training: orientation. Early show at 7 am in order to get the HR paperwork out of the way. Also got pics taken for our IDs. We were in a group orientation that included us pilots, airport operations, ground operations, tech ops (aka MX) and various support crewmembers from other locations. It started out with an intro to jetBlue and a run down of some terms that are unique to the airline. For example, we don't have "passengers," we have customers. No one is an employee, we're all crewmembers. After about three walls full of management representatives introduced themselves, it was time for all of us new hires to talk a bit about ourselves. After a short break, the CEO, Dave Barger, spent a lot of time going over where jetBlue came from, and (more importantly) where jetBlue is going and how we're going to get there. After Dave, Rob Maruster, the COO, talked about the values and how they apply at jetBlue. After his module, there was a discussion on the routes that included how jetBlue decides what markets and the every popular "Why don't you go to XYZ?" conversation. Break for lunch (they paid for it, too). Back from lunch, we talked some more about the values as well as the government affairs. Venezuela and Cuba are looking good for the future if the political hurdles can be overcome. After that, a rep from marketing talked about how important maintaining the brand is. The surprised of the day (for me) was when someone from finance actually broke down how jetBlue makes (or loses) money and showed how close we can cut it with some real world examples. Lots of charts in this section, and you really get a sense of how badly an airline's financials can get wrecked just with a small increase of fuel costs. Slight wrap up, and we're back for day two of orientations tomorrow. Looks like it's going to be mostly benefits in the morning, and the different groups go their separate ways in the afternoon.
Couple of things that were very different about this orientation than my three previous airlines. First, they invited our significant others to come with us. It's sort of a "You're getting hired here, so your family is getting hired here" type thing. My wife isn't big on airline stuff at all, and she really enjoyed it. Said she learned a lot. Tomorrow, they're actually putting the SOs in the sims for a while! Another thing that was different is I've NEVER had an airline more or less tell me the whole business model the way jetBlue did today. It was almost like they were trying to pitch it to investors the way they laid everything out. I guess if I think about it, I'm investing my career with them, so it makes sense. From route selection to marketing to finances, no airline I've worked for (even Southwest) put it all out there like I heard today. Coming from Pinnacle, where every decision seemed like it was made by some cabal of people in a secret society that feared sharing any kind of info, it was a very refreshing change. I'm hopeful that the free flow of info I saw today continues past orientation and continues like that on the line. It makes it so much easier to achieve the airline's goals if every crewmember is on the same page. Finally, I've been at orientations where the CEO was present for about an hour and gone. My new hire orientation at ExpressJet, Jim Ream was there for about an hour. Trenary was around for about 45 minutes at Pinnacle. We saw Herb in the hallway at Southwest. Dave Barger? He was in and out of the room all day long. For the CEO of a major airline to spend that much time in a new hire orientation class was pretty impressive to me. Taking into account there are still recovery ops from Sandy as well as issues with the current nor'easter going on, and it was more impressive he could take the time to be there. I wasn't expecting him to be able to make it down at all, much less spend most of the day there.
First impressions: I'm very happy with the choice to come here so far. Looks like I'm going to wind up getting exactly what I thought I would as far as aircraft and base goes, and thus far everything is as advertised or better. Health insurance isn't all that, but we'll find out more on that in the benefits briefing tomorrow, I'm sure.