The Encore Air Cargo Iron Curtain

[ghoster]

95% of our positions are now metro positions. The 2 piston only positions we've had open recently have been filled so unless we get new piston routes, i would assume it would be roughly a 6 month wait to get on. One of the piston routes is FSD based and you spend the day in Nebraska. The other is Aberdeen based and you'd spend the day at home and the night in FSD in a sleep room. You work roughly 3 hours in the morning, fly somewhere and spend the day (either at home or at a crew apartment), then fly back at night (roughly 2.5 hours of work). Both of those routes start Monday night and end Saturday morning (with roughly 60 hours off for your weekend). The primary responsibility is showing up on time (you'd think this would be easy, but a lot of people struggle with it)... then you help load a bit of freight (500-1000lbs roughly), fly somewhere, then fly back. It's extremely easy work and is the same as any other UPS work (Ameriflight, Freight Runners, Martinaire, Key Lime, etc. all run the same schedules). Our company also does auto parts on demand in Texas which is metro only. The worklaod there is different and requires a lot more time on call (plus you have to live in Texas... blah). We have 1 route out of the Twin Cities, but again it's a Metroliner route.

It is a great experience, and if you love living in the area it's hard to leave a job like this. The pay is better than average and the mangement is really good. The pilot group is good and the experience is like noneother. Where are you at in Iowa? send me a PM if you'd like.

Hey, gomntwins, how often does spots come open on the Texas based routes or runs? Can you tell us more about that part of the operation?

 

[Tommay85]

According to Landmark(their owner), they're still looking.
https://landmarkaviationhr.silkroad...&parent=Charter and Aircraft MGMT&startflag=2

 

[DragonStar45]

Any info on the Metro side of the operation in Addison, like days off and pay. Is the metro single pilot certified or does Landmark use two pilots.

 

[gomntwins]

Any info on the Metro side of the operation in Addison, like days off and pay. Is the metro single pilot certified or does Landmark use two pilots.

Ghoster and DragonStar45:

Info on Addison.

The Addison position may or may not be changing in the near future, so I'm not 100% sure what's going on. Also, one of our pilots may take the position that is for sure open (he's going to do a trial run for 2 weeks to test the waters). So, at the moment, I'm not 100% sure what to say. The position is currently a M-F position, airline home on weekends, and requires 2 pilots. That may change to a 2 week on, 1 week off rotation, that would require 3. At the moment things have slowed up, so I'm not sure what the plan is.

All of our metro's are operated single pilot, although Texas has 2 pilots flying in 1 airplane. Both are captains and neither are FO's. Meaning, even with 2 pilots on board, the PIC is in charge of everything and the non flying pilot has essentially no responsibilities. Common sense dictates that in a high workload environment the pilots work together, but the majority of the time you'll fly like you're alone. When one pilot calls in sick or goes on vacation, you will be operating the airplane alone. So, don't apply unless you're fine with true single pilot time in a metroliner. A normal day would have both pilots on board however. It allows us to fly more than 8 hours a day (each pilot can fly 8, so it would allow you to put 16 hours on the airplane... although it is duty time sitting there, so the most you could really do is probably 13-14 flight time in a 16 hour period.)

You start off with 2 weeks of vacation per year and 1 week sick time. The pay is private information, and I have no clue what they pay starting off in Addison anymore. I highly doubt you'll get any landmark pilot to tell you what they make. It's a company policy to not divulge personal pay to others.

I've never flown in Texas on these runs and personally have zero desire to spend that much time away from home. That being said, for the right person, you can probably make pretty decent money and build up some turbine PIC quickly.