More Tough Decisons....

[SteveC]

... I'll leave boats and planes to folks who...

Was at the gym today and had to hit repeat a couple times for a song that includes this lyric:

There’s so much confusion in this world of illusion
With all these possessions we’re taught to need
If people with nothing could hold onto something,
If they can be happy, Why can’t we?

 

[ClarkGriswold]

Honest question, are you feeling you made the wrong choice going to C5 when it seems "everyone" is going to other regionals that have jets, higher pay, etc? I think seeing everyone leaving has made you second guess yourself, which is understandable but listen to @cmhumphr he knows, like he said he thought of doing this last year and is now a Capt.

 

[TallFlyer]

Meant to do this last night:

It was a joke lighten up. Make a decision, we've all had to. Plenty of good info in this thread already.

Eh, didn't really come across as a joke at the time, sorry about that. You're right though, plenty of people sharing some good information.

To answer your question, after an "interesting" 135 background, and a few other interviews this past summer, C5 was the door that opened for me. So I'm not saying that C5 was a wrong choice, for me it was THE choice. Now that I'm prior 121 a few more doors are opening for me that were not before, and not just G7, although I was not perusing them this past summer.

@Polar742 Actually 121 has been growing on me. It's really nice to just head out to the airplane with a stack of paperwork and just go fly. It's frustrating in that there's not much I can do to expedite the operation when things go sideways, which when you're on the IAD ramp can happen quite frequently. But yeah, I've had one or two learning experiences with a few Captains (maybe with @cmhumphr apparently), but by and large it's been a really good experience.

@ZapBrannigan , sure we're not related? I can relate to everything you've said, although to be fair you've been a lot more successful than me. One day when we both retire we'll have to compare closets and see who collected the most uniforms.

@cmhumphr Introduce yourself man! I will admit I've not been as productive as I should've been during my long hours of ready in the IAD crew room. The Blue Book should've gotten more of my attention, but I think I have all the bugs worked out now. We can talk more outside of this thread if you'd like.

 

[cmhumphr]

Meant to do this last night:

Eh, didn't really come across as a joke at the time, sorry about that. You're right though, plenty of people sharing some good information.

To answer your question, after an "interesting" 135 background, and a few other interviews this past summer, C5 was the door that opened for me. So I'm not saying that C5 was a wrong choice, for me it was THE choice. Now that I'm prior 121 a few more doors are opening for me that were not before, and not just G7, although I was not perusing them this past summer.

@Polar742 Actually 121 has been growing on me. It's really nice to just head out to the airplane with a stack of paperwork and just go fly. It's frustrating in that there's not much I can do to expedite the operation when things go sideways, which when you're on the IAD ramp can happen quite frequently. But yeah, I've had one or two learning experiences with a few Captains (maybe with @cmhumphr apparently), but by and large it's been a really good experience.

@ZapBrannigan , sure we're not related? I can relate to everything you've said, although to be fair you've been a lot more successful than me. One day when we both retire we'll have to compare closets and see who collected the most uniforms.

@cmhumphr Introduce yourself man! I will admit I've not been as productive as I should've been during my long hours of ready in the IAD crew room. The Blue Book should've gotten more of my attention, but I think I have all the bugs worked out now. We can talk more outside of this thread if you'd like.

It's always great to get that Blue Book out review things, but I was more so referring to just having a laptop, registering for classes and knocking them out as quickly but efficiently as possible. It's a great outcome either way! If you get called, you're flying and if you don't then you just basically got about a weeks worth of school work done in 8 hours if you really push yourself. You'll never even have to do school work on your day off if you do it right!

 

[MikeD]

, after an "interesting" 135 background, .

What is defined as an "interesting" 135 background? Am not tracking here.....

 

[BobDDuck]

Actually 121 has been growing on me. It's really nice to just head out to the airplane with a stack of paperwork and just go fly. It's frustrating in that there's not much I can do to expedite the operation when things go sideways, which when you're on the IAD ramp can happen quite frequently.

This is both the greatest and worst thing about 121. You, as a lowly line pilot don't have the ability to effect change in the operation on a day to day basis. It isn't your job to go above and beyond to solve all the problems. You can't hurry up the fueler any more than calling ops (for the third time) and asking where they are. You can't get the gate agents to board the plane any faster when they are boarding 3 flights out of one gate and you happen to be number three. You can't do anything about the fact that because MX didn't swap out a part the night before when the plane overnighted in an MX base, and now the part has broken again, you are grounded for several hours and the passengers are going to miss their connections/weddings/funerals/black friday deals. And all of that can be exceedingly frustrating, but once you find your zen place (ask @Screaming_Emu about that) life is good because you truly have no responsibilities beyond safely flying the airplane.

I'd say that if you are happy with WHERE you are living, don't give up on C5. Enjoy living where you are. Get involved with things going on in the local community. Join a softball team. Start attending Thursday Night open mic nights. Volunteer at the dog shelter. Make flying a very, very small part of your life that you do when you aren't enjoying living. Of course enjoy the flying part to, but work to live, don't live to work. And of course, bang out your degree. As long as you can get by on what you are making (and honestly, the pay banding differential between all regionals is VERY small so a lateral move won't help much until you are looking at captain pay banding), and you can hack flying the plane (and the aforementioned being able to live in base) I don't see any reason you should move on to somewhere else.

 

[Maurus]

What is defined as an "interesting" 135 background? Am not tracking here.....

Key Lime is all that really needs to be said.

 

[Maurus]

once you find your zen place (ask @Screaming_Emu about that) life is good because you truly have no responsibilities beyond safely flying the airplane.

Took me about 2 months on a DHL ramp to figure this one out.

It became comical watching the circus getting me loaded 45 minutes late every day. UPS managers yelling at you for being one minute late was also awesome.

Once I decided that I didn't care if I was late as long as it wasn't my fault stress dropped a ton.

 

[upup89]

While CMT has had their issues the guys I know there say the place is turning culturally.

This is correct. I have seen a slow change in the way this place treats its pilots over the last year or so. I think our group has a great working relationship with management at the moment and morale is much much better than when I first got on here. We still have some strides to make in terms of getting on a level playing field with most of the other regionals but overall we are treated well here and that is not something I would have said 4 years ago. I think most FO attrition is due to the slow trickle pace that Captain attrition is at right now but I'm sure at some point that will change. I know we are all eager to hear the details of the United pilot career path program. That could be something that could be great or it may not be worth the paper it is written on. It's anyone's guess at this point.

 

[cmhumphr]

This is correct. I have seen a slow change in the way this place treats its pilots over the last year or so. I think our group has a great working relationship with management at the moment and morale is much much better than when I first got on here. We still have some strides to make in terms of getting on a level playing field with most of the other regionals but overall we are treated well here and that is not something I would have said 4 years ago. I think most FO attrition is due to the slow trickle pace that Captain attrition is at right now but I'm sure at some point that will change. I know we are all eager to hear the details of the United pilot career path program. That could be something that could be great or it may not be worth the paper it is written on. It's anyone's guess at this point.

I agree with @upup89 on this. I can definitely attest to all the above and that things have improved drastically since I started here. Granted it's nowhere near perfect but you can definitely tell the company is without a doubt improving. We are currently going through a lot of changes that are making things here frustrating, but they will overall improve things when the kinks get ironed out.

This is both the greatest and worst thing about 121. You, as a lowly line pilot don't have the ability to effect change in the operation on a day to day basis. It isn't your job to go above and beyond to solve all the problems. You can't hurry up the fueler any more than calling ops (for the third time) and asking where they are. You can't get the gate agents to board the plane any faster when they are boarding 3 flights out of one gate and you happen to be number three. You can't do anything about the fact that because MX didn't swap out a part the night before when the plane overnighted in an MX base, and now the part has broken again, you are grounded for several hours and the passengers are going to miss their connections/weddings/funerals/black friday deals. And all of that can be exceedingly frustrating, but once you find your zen place (ask @Screaming_Emu about that) life is good because you truly have no responsibilities beyond safely flying the airplane.

I'd say that if you are happy with WHERE you are living, don't give up on C5. Enjoy living where you are. Get involved with things going on in the local community. Join a softball team. Start attending Thursday Night open mic nights. Volunteer at the dog shelter. Make flying a very, very small part of your life that you do when you aren't enjoying living. Of course enjoy the flying part to, but work to live, don't live to work. And of course, bang out your degree. As long as you can get by on what you are making (and honestly, the pay banding differential between all regionals is VERY small so a lateral move won't help much until you are looking at captain pay banding), and you can hack flying the plane (and the aforementioned being able to live in base) I don't see any reason you should move on to somewhere else.

+1 for this as well! Work to live and don't live to work. Be very proactive with your time off. I found that getting involved in things around town make all the difference. Don't forget you have travel benefits! You the heck out of those things! If you do it right, you can do an awesome short 2 day Eurotrip with little to no money.

 

[Polar742]

Also, @TallFlyer some of your over reaching with management will get your name in the ash tray, log tin, behind the yoke or other secret spot for peer adjustment techniques. You Never want to be That Guy.

 

[Bumblebee]

Key Lime is all that really needs to be said.

no that can't be it…they changed…they improved…


yeah BULL. I remember getting a ration for calling that crappy place out. Then every thing I said was confirmed. Interesting, my bahooya. More like shady.

 

[BobDDuck]

Also, @TallFlyer some of your over reaching with management will get your name in the ash tray, log tin, behind the yoke or other secret spot for peer adjustment techniques. You Never want to be That Guy.

That's VERY true. However, at a small property it isn't unusual to know the schedulers by name and to have them know you by first name. I'm still getting used to calling in out here and just saying "Hi, this is Jimmy (@jtrain609) and the scheduling knowing exactly who I am and who I am flying with the next day without having to ask for my employee number.

 

[Polar742]

That's VERY true. However, at a small property it isn't unusual to know the schedulers by name and to have them know you by first name. I'm still getting used to calling in out here and just saying "Hi, this is Jimmy (@jtrain609) and the scheduling knowing exactly who I am and who I am flying with the next day without having to ask for my employee number.

Chq was like that when I started.

However, the same rules still applied.

 

[NYPilot326]

Well, every time I talk to scheduling they like to tell me about how they're very hard up for FOs. The last class we had go through had three in it. A class before that had 5 show up, but only two made it through for one reason or another.

I would really not take anything crew scheduling says about staffing too seriously, and certainly not make decisions based on it, they would say we were short FO's if we had twice the number we have now. They will tell you that they want 8 FO's on reserve per base (they actually do have this in EWR some days). I would say we are a little short FO's but not really short. Keeping track there was only 1 or 2 days in the last few months where all reserve FO's were used. Plus your IAD based, your not going to be on reserve much longer, have some patience.

 

[ClarkGriswold]

Some people deal with reserve for years, @TallFlyer gets bent out of shape after not being able to hold a line immediately? Like the guy above said have some patience. Just talked to a buddy of mine there who is a JR Capt and it doesn't sound nearly as dire as you make it out to be... I has a feeling this whole thing pertains to that beloved SJS.

Anywho, Any updates?

 

[cmhumphr]

Some people deal with reserve for years, @TallFlyer gets bent out of shape after not being able to hold a line immediately? Like the guy above said have some patience. Just talked to a buddy of mine there who is a JR Capt and it doesn't sound nearly as dire as you make it out to be... I has a feeling this whole thing pertains to that beloved SJS.

Anywho, Any updates?

Honestly everybody gets it here at least once, but how you handle it is a different story. I've even fallen guilty to SJS and I'm not afraid to admit that. However, after a quick talk with mentors and realizing the position I was in, I chose to stay and most people do.

 

[ClarkGriswold]

So have you made a decision yet?

 

[BPF]

'There's a former Capt from C5 that started at TSA in June. He's in a Feb upgrade class.'

Nope, you've been mislead. Upgrade is quick (now), but not that quick. I wouldn't bank on that anywhere.

 

[BPF]

Disregard my above post. I was wrong...just saw it. Management position I see.