Nervous, Nervous, Nervous
- Thread starter meritflyer
- Start date
Champcar
Well-Known Member
Nah, both were Dash 8 drivers.But wait...flying that 900 with 86 peeps in back must be sweeeeeet!!!
Maximilian_Jenius
Super User
There aren't that many FO reserves in IAD - for a while there was a bunch of captain on captain flying going on, but I haven't heard of that going on much. I'd be surprised if you did more than a couple of months on reserve in IAD at most.
Now JFK and the Dash 8's, being on reserve in JFK isn't the worse of their problems. There are a lot of Dash 8 reserves in JFK, but the Dash's are going away and all those people are going to get displaced out to the West Coast. So if you joined Mesa to fly the Dash for the quick upgrade on the East Coast you're in a world of hurt - unless you quit and go somewhere else like a buddy of mine did
That's possible - but I don't believe that. I think that's just the unhealthy paranoia of the people on mesahub showing through. I don't think Mesa is that organised that they could figure out what flying to withhold and they'd probably just mess that up and leave themselves with a pile of uncovered flying they couldn't cover with reserves. Also the union scheduling committee gets to work pretty closely with the company crew schedulers building the bid packets and I don't think the company is organised enough to be running some kind of secret behind the scenes plan to pull flying from the system that the union wouldn't detect, especially when they spend half their time trying to reconcile the customers monthly schedule with our 28 day bid cycle. So like many theories on mesahub I think that one's a bust.
Like many things at Mesa, don't believe in a conspiracy when incompetence is a possible explanation.
Honestly, this is what you need to be prepared for:
In ground school take your colored pencils or crayola's so you can color in the color logic on the EICAS slides they give you.
Once online prepare yourself for being shorted pay, showing up at the hotels and not having a room reservation (*hotel desk seems to get it right if you are a line holder, but if you fly something reserve or something special they always dropped the ball), being told by crew tracking "well, you can take a cab to the new hotel if YOU pay for it...", Stand Up's in which the whole crew was to be housed in the same hotel room (back in '05-06), and right now junior assigning as much as possible.
I was talking with a friend that is still a regional rep there and 70 FO's resigned just last month...and they hired around 40....
Just FYI.
Good Luck.
Toria
Well-Known Member
When you risk everything to follow your dream, the payoff can be tremendous in its achievement.
Change is always stressful because it is unknown. In a week you will be more comfortable because it will then be familiar.
Bog
New Member
Yes. No matter what our little ray of sunshine posted in this thread, and posts all over the Mesa Hub, IT REALLY IS THAT BAD.
Why else would MAG have FOs bailing left-and-right before completing their first year? Why else would the very first thing you see on MAG's official company website be hiring bonuses? Management is desperate. OJ always said that he was paying us too much because he had 1000s of resumes in the recruiter's office. Well, that's not that case anymore because the truth about the place is getting out (no matter what CFI says here, on The Hub, or anywhere else), and because the recruiter just quit. You WILL be mistreated, you WILL be asked (directly or indirectly) to violate FARs, the contract (bad as it is) is violated EVERY DAY by the company, and the only recourse is the grievance process which can take years to complete.
Want more? Here's more concrete information that Ray Of Sunshine cannot dispute. For the last 12+ bid periods at MAG, I was awarded lines that were supposed to pay 80-90 hours. Each and every one of those 12+ bids, I only made my minimum 70 hours because of MX and WX cancellations and "reassignments." EVERY ONE! At a minimum that's $7000 because the company is so jacked up! No way to put a positive spin on that one.
You asked, so here's a great example. Last fall, I flew BNA to ORD to FSD. We started with a 5:15am show for what was supposed to be a 6-leg, 13.5 hour duty day. Well, in my history at MAG, I averaged about a 40% completion rate for days like those, and I had days like those about 6 times per bid. So, we get to FSD at around noon. The gate agent informs us that our wheels-up time is 1330. We sit. We wait. The time gets pushed back again, and again, and again, and again. Skywest comes in from DEN around 1530 or 1600 to do a turn and go to ORD. We're both seriously delayed. Then, at 2000, the Skywest CA gets a call from his dispatcher and learns that his flight is cancelled, and that he and his crew can go to the hotel which has already been arranged. At 2015, still hearing NOTHING from MAG, I make yet another call. At 2045, after being on hold for 30 minutes (and after seeing in a computer that my flight had cancelled), I finally get a MAG employee to confirm that yes my flight had cancelled, but they had no idea what they were doing with us, so just hang out and wait for a call back. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. Have I mentioned that the next day was a day off for me? Well, around 2130, after I made three more phone calls, we're told that we're cancelled, we're dutied off, and we need to repo the airplane in the morning after getting our 8 hours of "rest." Oh, but no hotel is setup for us yet, and that takes another 20 minutes. So, we finally get to the hotel at 2200, so that we can take a 0530 van back to the airport to repo the plane ON MY DAY OFF. Oh, and the other round trip I was supposed to do was also cancelled and I didn't get paid for it. I had to repo the airplane on my day off, and I could have asked for another day off to compensate for that, but then I'd lose every ounce of pay on the new day off. So, it's a lose-lose for me no matter how you look at it.
Days like those happened at least once a month to me and everyone else at MAG. Maybe it's not that bad (yet) in PHX, but you won't be going there anyway. You might enjoy your first couple of months, but you'll be hating life at the year mark. Just about everyone does.
As the saying goes ... friends don't let friends fly for MAG. Just ask around.
/rant
Which would all be great stuff - if any of it was true...... But it isn't, so what can you do?
These are all great stories - and no doubt the people telling them have deluded themselves into thinking they are true. And yet I can never actually find a REAL person who has lived these kinds of nightmares.
Once in a while a trip gets really jacked up, but I'm sure that happens everywhere when places like JFK shutdown for snow. People get junior assigned, but nothing like as often as people claim. Turns get cancelled but nothing like as often as people claim.
If you spent six months and only ever made guarantee then there's something wrong with your story, because you can't have it both ways. Either you're being junior assigned like crazy or not flying enough to make guarantee - but it can't be both.
Look - MESA works rules are horrible, such as they are. The company sees pilots as a cost of doing business and treats them with little respect. But if you're mature, you understand what you're getting into, and you keep you head down and do your job you can get in and out. If you want a regional career, you don't want to be at Mesa. If you want to fly and move on, it's just fine. I've sat in airports and crew buses with people from other regionals, they've all got their stories.
Bog
New Member
CFI: I spent SEVEN YEARS AT MAG! Every part of my post is true, and my EXAMPLE was only for the last 12+ bids. I can assure you that, in my SEVEN YEARS AS A MAG PILOT, I only got paid 70 hours for about 65% of my time, and I was only a reserve pilot for a grand total of 7 bids in SEVEN YEARS.
You can claim all day long that the stories on The Hub, here, FlightInfo, and everywhere else are complete bs and that they're all made up by the same 3 people who are upset because they didn't upgrade in 3 months. You can believe that, if that is what gets you through the night. However, as someone who LIVED the MAG nightmare for SEVEN YEARS, and who can give you (or more importantly meritflyer) a LONG LIST of people who can and will vouch for those stories, I can assure you that they are 99% true.
You can claim all day long that the stories on The Hub, here, FlightInfo, and everywhere else are complete bs and that they're all made up by the same 3 people who are upset because they didn't upgrade in 3 months. You can believe that, if that is what gets you through the night. However, as someone who LIVED the MAG nightmare for SEVEN YEARS, and who can give you (or more importantly meritflyer) a LONG LIST of people who can and will vouch for those stories, I can assure you that they are 99% true.
kellwolf
Piece of Trash
Wow. I thought we had it bad over here. A flight CXs here, and we get 50% pay. We have the option to put ourselves airport reserve and get 100%, though. The trick is to do it after 7:30 pm in MEM. "Sure, you're airport reserve now." There aren't anymore flights leaving, so I just got paid 100% to drive home. Sucks, but at least we have the option. Also, if it's between turn, I'm gonna be at the airport anyway. Might as well get paid to sit there instead of the $1.40 an hour per diem alone.
In Feb, I had three flights CX due to staffing issues. Luckily, I had zero in March. April is looking about the same, since I actually have a CA and a FA scheduled for every flight that month. I've shown up to a hotel as a reserve before, and there wasn't a reservation. Quick call to scheduling, and they faxed the request to the front desk. Inconvenience, but still better than what things seem to be over at MAG. Since I've been off reserve, I've only had one issue with a hotel, and that was the hotel's fault, not PCL's. That little issue landed me on the hotel committee, too. I've been extended into my day off twice here. Both times I got 150% plus another day off down the road since it reduced me below 10 days for the month.
I've seen some of the improvements that have been TA'd in the scheduling part of our new contract, and there have been some significant improvements over what we have now. If we could just get the scope and compensation worked out, I think we'd be done.
In Feb, I had three flights CX due to staffing issues. Luckily, I had zero in March. April is looking about the same, since I actually have a CA and a FA scheduled for every flight that month. I've shown up to a hotel as a reserve before, and there wasn't a reservation. Quick call to scheduling, and they faxed the request to the front desk. Inconvenience, but still better than what things seem to be over at MAG. Since I've been off reserve, I've only had one issue with a hotel, and that was the hotel's fault, not PCL's. That little issue landed me on the hotel committee, too. I've been extended into my day off twice here. Both times I got 150% plus another day off down the road since it reduced me below 10 days for the month.
I've seen some of the improvements that have been TA'd in the scheduling part of our new contract, and there have been some significant improvements over what we have now. If we could just get the scope and compensation worked out, I think we'd be done.
inside0ut
Well-Known Member
I have 2 friends that fly at MAG and actually....they love it. One is a CA and one is FO. They have both told me as long as I dont get mixed up in the bitching and whining, my time here wont be as bad as people say. I dont know, ive heard the horror stories but I guess I will have to see what my experience with it is. I try and not feed into the negativity and keep a positive outlook. Like my dad says, it is what YOU make of it.
inside0ut
Well-Known Member
Understandable, but when its guys youve flown with for the last 6 years telling you that there are good points and bad points and what to expect, its alot diffrent than someone I dont know from adam telling me a horror story. I tend to believe the guys who I know for a fact wont blow smoke up my ass.
Anyway, who knows? MAG's contract is up in Sept. and they may fight for better work rules, block or better plus pay raises ect. Then maybe Mesa will be the place to be. I could tell you how Mesaba used to be the place to be and a few of my friends ran there. Within a year and a half they were furloghed while everyone else was hiring like crazy. Then you have to think "do I leave and give up my # and start from scratch or stick it out?" Every place has their probs, its how you deal with it sometimes makes the difference.....
Vladimir Lenin
New Member
wow...i dont post here often, but dude...commute from PHX to IAD to sit reserve at mesa? ARE U INSANE !?!?!?!?!
FLflyer
Well-Known Member
My thoughts exactly...Holy crap. Your 8 days off a months just went to about 4 days off a month. Not trying to rain on your parade, I just hope you realize that. Mesa didn't get a bad rep for no reason.wow...i dont post here often, but dude...commute from PHX to IAD to sit reserve at mesa? ARE U INSANE !?!?!?!?!
On a side note, had a Mesa guy on the jumpseat the other day, he was asking us all kinds of questions about our contract, and telling us how fed up he was at Mesa, sick of being abused there, and was considering coming here to XJT after spending over a year at Mesa. We have several guys here that have done that, actually.
And yet you can never find those people. I run into people all the time who tell me "look out, there's lots of junior assignment going on". So I ask them when they were last junior assigned, "oh me, it's been a couple of months for me, but I heard that it's going on". You never find anybody who is actually being junior assigned on a routine basis, or being awarded line of flying and just making guarantee - you just hear about them.
I just don't believe you - you made minimum 65% of the time - I never make minimum, and I rarely pick up open time. Are you sure we're talking about the same Mesa??
kellwolf
Piece of Trash
Careful with this thinking. Look up how long ASA's contract has been up. At PCL, our contract was ammendable 2 years ago, and we're just starting to get CLOSE to a new deal. I have no doubts the Mesa pilots will fight for a better contract, and fight HARD. I wouldn't expect that contract to materialize quickly, though. Management is gonna fight just as hard to NOT give up those things.
mtsu_av8er
Well-Known Member
So what you're saying is that even if more people told their stories, you wouldn't believe them either, right?