Whats so bad about being OAK based with Ameriflight?

nbv4

Well-Known Member
I'm considering leaving my job and going with Ameriflight. I read that OAK is always needing pilots, but I keep hearing that their OAK bas is really bad, but no one ever goes into detail as to why. Is it the schedule, the pay, the location, poor upgrade paths?
 
I was OAK based for a year. Sched is normal and you won't have to work saturdays ever since its all bank runs. Pay is slightly better than some bases since many of the runs pay more than weekly guarantee, but the area is so expensive it evens out. Upgrade is bad because there are so many Chieftain runs and so few turbine runs. They are always short of pilots so transferring to another base is difficult sometimes. Since you come to AMF for turbine pic Oaklands slow upgrade is a huge downside. When I was there 99 upgrade was a year, now that things are frozen who knows how long it will be. If you are willing to move to some random 99 outstation somewhere then going to OAK for few months first could work out, but if you plan on staying at OAK it will be a long wait.
 
I was OAK based for a year. Sched is normal and you won't have to work saturdays ever since its all bank runs. Pay is slightly better than some bases since many of the runs pay more than weekly guarantee, but the area is so expensive it evens out. Upgrade is bad because there are so many Chieftain runs and so few turbine runs. They are always short of pilots so transferring to another base is difficult sometimes. Since you come to AMF for turbine pic Oaklands slow upgrade is a huge downside. When I was there 99 upgrade was a year, now that things are frozen who knows how long it will be. If you are willing to move to some random 99 outstation somewhere then going to OAK for few months first could work out, but if you plan on staying at OAK it will be a long wait.
So the only downsides are expensive living and bad upgrade? My only objectives are making money and getting multi-PIC. I'm not at all interested in upgrading. I just want to do it for a few months then move on.

Do most people live in crashpad type places or what? Is it possible or practical to live out in the boons and commute via the BART? do you know roughly what I can expect to bring home per month?
 
I'm considering leaving my job and going with Ameriflight. I read that OAK is always needing pilots, but I keep hearing that their OAK bas is really bad, but no one ever goes into detail as to why. Is it the schedule, the pay, the location, poor upgrade paths?

First of all, being based anywhere for Ameriflight sucks. But i would say Oakland is up near the top of the list. The runs up there suck most of them are either 8-9 leg hellish days or 2 leg 9-15 hour layover sits. The upgrade time is slooooow especially right now so all the pilots are bitter and angry up there, and the dispatchers are rude and unhelpful. I would also say maintanance is by far the worst up there too. Also another thing is Ameriflight does have a 1 year agreement you have to sign, so your plan of staying for a few months and then leaving will cause problems. I would think long and hard before applying to Ameriflight(Amerislave)

Oh yeah, and i would plan on taking home ~1600-1800 a Month. You won't get any per diem so thats it.
 
First of all, being based anywhere for Ameriflight sucks. But i would say Oakland is up near the top of the list. The runs up there suck most of them are either 8-9 leg hellish days or 2 leg 9-15 hour layover sits. The upgrade time is slooooow especially right now so all the pilots are bitter and angry up there, and the dispatchers are rude and unhelpful. I would also say maintanance is by far the worst up there too. Also another thing is Ameriflight does have a 1 year agreement you have to sign, so your plan of staying for a few months and then leaving will cause problems. I would think long and hard before applying to Ameriflight(Amerislave)

Oh yeah, and i would plan on taking home ~1600-1800 a Month. You won't get any per diem so thats it.

with the current state of the industry, this is probably as good as you can get anywhere. if i was unemployed, that would beat not having a job at all.
 
Ignore any regional rats chasing rotten cheese.

If your referring to me, your completely wrong. I would bet i'm the most anti-regional person you'd ever meet. I'm not going to sugarcoat it and say Ameriflight is a great place, sorry.
 
First of all, being based anywhere for Ameriflight sucks. But i would say Oakland is up near the top of the list. The runs up there suck most of them are either 8-9 leg hellish days or 2 leg 9-15 hour layover sits. The upgrade time is slooooow especially right now so all the pilots are bitter and angry up there, and the dispatchers are rude and unhelpful. I would also say maintanance is by far the worst up there too. Also another thing is Ameriflight does have a 1 year agreement you have to sign, so your plan of staying for a few months and then leaving will cause problems. I would think long and hard before applying to Ameriflight(Amerislave)

Oh yeah, and i would plan on taking home ~1600-1800 a Month. You won't get any per diem so thats it.

How do the 8-9 leg days work? I always thought they left OAK early AM, layover all day, then flew back at night.
 
How do the 8-9 leg days work? I always thought they left OAK early AM, layover all day, then flew back at night.

Yea most runs are early AM out of OAK then layover al day and return to OAK in the PM. There are a couple runs that have multiple legs though, Instead of a long layover you fly 8-9 legs all with very short sits (some as short as 15min turns, and some slightly longer)
 
Yea most runs are early AM out of OAK then layover al day and return to OAK in the PM. There are a couple runs that have multiple legs though, Instead of a long layover you fly 8-9 legs all with very short sits (some as short as 15min turns, and some slightly longer)

Which ones are those??
 
Yea most runs are early AM out of OAK then layover al day and return to OAK in the PM. There are a couple runs that have multiple legs though, Instead of a long layover you fly 8-9 legs all with very short sits (some as short as 15min turns, and some slightly longer)

sounds good to me... hook a broth up with some flyin!
 
sounds good to me... hook a broth up with some flyin!

Haha, we'll see if your still saying that on your 5th day in a row of doing it in bad weather with the 14.5 hour duty days all single pilot. Thats 45 approaches in one week if the weathers bad, trust me you'll be hating life.
 
Haha, we'll see if your still saying that on your 5th day in a row of doing it in bad weather with the 14.5 hour duty days all single pilot. Thats 45 approaches in one week if the weathers bad, trust me you'll be hating life.

perhaps. but thats not 52 weeks a year. and the hours will go up very very quickly. plus chicks dig stats like that.:sarcasm:
 
No, I wasn't referring to you - and I've never met anyone in my life that has flown 45 approaches in one week. That seems slightly overexaggerated. And, scooter - maybe wild women dig 14.5 hour duty days and lots of flight hours, but engaged women certainly do NOT. In fact, my experience has been that they flip on command after hearing Pronouns such as Airnet or Ameriflight.
 
Dude your lame:banghead: And with 14 hr duty days you'll never get chicks working that much.

Really unnecessary name calling, but for your sake, I'll edit what I said and throw a sarcasm tag at the end...

on another note, thanks for the opinion on oak. (not being sarcastic)
 
No, I wasn't referring to you - and I've never met anyone in my life that has flown 45 approaches in one week. That seems slightly overexaggerated. And, scooter - maybe wild women dig 14.5 hour duty days and lots of flight hours, but engaged women certainly do NOT. In fact, my experience has been that they flip on command after hearing Pronouns such as Airnet or Ameriflight.

HA hows teterhole treatin ya? tell "airnetkenny" howdy for me.

ps whens the date so i can cras..... commemorate the celebration?
 
Don't go there expecting a quick upgrade, seniority aside some get lucky and some do not... If your only goal is really multi-PIC then AMF would be a good choice but you will probably get the itch to upgrade to the 99 before long.
 
OAK sucks you got that right but not all the bases suck. I've been based in two bases and tdy in three oak was the worst. I would think real hard before coming to AMF right now. They are trigger happy with firing pilots right now.
 
45 approaches a week, you're kidding right? I've lived in California my whole life and you aren't gonna have bad weather for 5 straight days. Not to mention the only 9 leg run is to all VFR airports so if its that bad you aren't going anyway.
 
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