swisspilot
Well-Known Member
I tried to go to work for them 7 years ago with 1000hrs. Sold my stuff, moved to Kona and spent a month waiting to see if they'd train me. They did one or two flights, but we never did indoc, or anything else. After a month of this, I was completely broke, I went down to talk about this with the management types about this, they said, "if you're broke, you can wash airplanes or take a loan out from the company." I found a job back in Alaska and went home.
I'm sure the timing was bad - as I guess they didn't have people who could do it, but why the heck did they ask me to quit my job and fly out to Kona then? I was very upset, and I didn't exactly handle it well when they told me a could take a loan out from the company; I was angry and sad all at the same time and I burned that bridge so hard people won't be able to walk over it for 1000 years, not my greatest moment. It was a rude awakening to the world of aviation that I'd largely been insulated from in Alaska. I'm still fairly embarrassed about I handled it, when I was on vacation in hawaii a year later, I went in to apologize, but nobody who was there at the time still worked there, so if you remember an angry 19 year old me, and you happen to be on jetcareers - I am sorry - consider this my public apology. The economic consequences of going and trying to make it there took me two years to pay off, but it was a worthwhile experience, and I'm now moving back to Hawaii (though to Kauai this time) with my family in October.
That said, I've talked to other people who had an absolutely excellent experience there, and I truly believe that my experience was due to bad timing and growing pains of the company rather than intentional malice - but it didn't appear that way at the time. I've heard that if you're picking between Mokulele and Pacific Wings, pick Mokulele.
Pat this sounds like any Bush Pilot job outside the US...at my current job it took me over 8 months to start flying from the day I was hired, but the patience and the belt tightening paid off.