wiz5422

How are things these days at executive airshare? The flying, schedules, attrition, etc.

Would love to get in the phenom PIC in Dallas.

RI830

Unions not needed. Remove once source of negativity and all will be well.
A few whispers online make things go viral. It may wake up a few who need to hear it, but let's not get extreme.

Wanna know how well unionizing goes, ask Flight Options on their dealings with Teamsters.

EAS is an amazing company and get back on the straight and narrow if a few things are fixed. A union is not needed for this, a simple uprising (with proper and respectful communication) within the ranks to the right people can work wonders.

Squeezing the Orange is not part of good management.

Vsipegged

Right now with the aviation job industry being as absorbent as it has been, it's difficult for one to select EAS as a career stop. The main problems have all been mentioned here before, pay, schedule, benefits. When asked what makes a pilot stay somewhere, what is the most common answer? Money. QOL.

EAS is an amazing job to have in a tight job market where it's hard to find work as a pilot. Those times are past now, and the only way to foster retention is to be on par with or at least close to the competition.

At the current rate of attrition here, the only means of recovery is a swift change with long term career implications.

When a professional pilot sits down and reviews a company in this job market, he looks for a place that will give him the most for his time invested. For some guys this might be a type rating and some PIC time, only to move on to the next big thing. Then you have the group of pilots who want to settle down and know that 10 years from now they are in a position relative to their experience and time in the industry. Right now, Airshare does not offer this. Your pay caps out low. The schedule, while improved a great deal, still leaves you open to be gone a LOT. The benefits are atrocious if you have any sort of health issue.

They need to fish with a bigger net so to speak. Hiring low time pilots with limited options is great! Hiring the guy with an amazing resume is also good, because if you can reel him in, you'll probably keep him for a long long time.

Hopefully something happens soon, or else the short staffing is only going to drive guys away at an even higher rate.

VSI

bjtdrvr

Am not sure what you mean about the Teamsters. Negotiated a first contract with FO during what some economists saying was the worst economic down turn in US history. Have great protections now in place! Can not be fired for being "unhappy" at work. Can not be fired for "bad body language" during indoc before you even take your indoc! Over the course of the five year contract received approximately 35 percent pay increase! Do not have to answer phone before duty on time, 7/7 off schedule available for bid. Company pays completely for your meals. Don't have to go over 14 hours especially on last day. Can refuse trips on last day if scheduled over 14. Protection from over zealous managers calling you in for CGF1 arrivals! First fractional with ASAP program now it includes maintenance as well. You CAN be fired for intentionally breaking regs or company sop's. It can and has happened! (As it should be!) After FO management had Flex flying Phenom 300 filed greivance and those a/c are now flown by FO pilots (scope)! Training and travel on company time. Three 8 day blocks of vacation (PTO) accrued per year. That is three times a year that one can have 22 days off in a row. This is just a few of the benefits of the first contract!

How's it going at for the individuals at an at will company?

JungleJim

Lots of union talk going on around here. So far just the usual hush-hush wink-wink secret handshake kind of crap among a small group of pilots. It's kind of entertaining to watch. This pilot group as a whole is not ready for a union. No two pilots can agree on what the problems really are, and the problems that we have are not the type of problems that a union is going to fix.

Neither do we.

So does ours.

Neither do we. Nobody ever has to accept a day over 14 hours. Nobody has to accept anything that goes past midnight on their last day.

Now, I am far from a company cheerleader, but overall our work rules are not bad. Our schedule isn't the best, but it's manageable. And I will say that every time I have had a major issue and needed time to take care of my family or something of that sort, I have found both management and scheduling willing to work things out with me personally and directly. Once there's a union and a contract, that will not happen anymore. All a union is going to do is come in, make some minimal "improvements," and take a ton of money out of everyone's pay checks.

Oh, and you guys think the old boys' club here is bad now?? Wait until you get our inexperienced overgrown frat boy types that think they are god's gift to the world in union leadership roles.

^^THIS. This is the number one problem causing attrition. Reward loyalty, and people will stay.

The other problems in this place are more on the operations side. Our scheduling and trip planning departments need to be completely reorganized. We need a dedicated dispatch department. The hiring and interview process needs to be re-evaluated. The training for new-hire pilots, especially guys and gals with zero experience, needs to be completely revamped. A union will not solve these problems. Making sure that we have the right people in management, and giving them the tools they need to make improvements, will.

Unfortunately, I have a feeling it's already too late. The floodgates have opened and it's not getting better anytime soon. I do hope that you are right and that management is doing something, those of us that would like to stick around here for a bit need something to hang our hat on.

RI830

Many of the things you listed are available at the other fractionals.
I can't get past the Teamsters unwillingness to keep the Hawker pilots at Hawker pay when they moved into the Phenoms.
Ken Ricci was willing to spend more, yet Teamsters wouldn't have any of it.
Now it seems they just intend to get in the way of everything for their own personal gain instead of the pilots gain.

I am learning more and more every week about FLOPS and Teamsters. Nothing seems to be in favor of Teamsters.

As for the EAS and union subject. It just isn't going to benefit anyone but the union if it goes through. At the root of the union issue...the union is in it for dues and the ever growing memebrship list.

RI830

Things were better before ASTRO and could be better if they will utilize the proper "optimization" levels.
I never saw a problem with self dispatching. It allows for you to control how and where you go.

What is wrong with it and how would you change it if you had the say?

How would you change this? There is a lot of blame on CAE/ECTS for this, not as much EAS.

The removal of only one individual will correct a multitude of issues.

With the Legacys hiring, this is a problem not just for EAS, but all fractionals and corporate gigs. I know guys going to NJE and 10+ year guys bailing NJE for Legacy gigs.

There is no one point solution to any job or issue. It's up the right and good EAS mgmt peoples to right the ship not a union.

JungleJim

It doesn't matter how you optimize if you don't have the right staffing in the right places. Yes, Astro brought a ton of problems with it, but staffing is the issue right now.

Please name another commercial operator the size of EAS that does things this way. The only one I can think of might be GAMA/WheelsUp, but I know that's been a major gripe in the past for their pilots as well.

I would add a technical interview. I would also stop rejecting qualified candidates just because I didn't like the tie color that they selected or what they ordered for lunch.

The indoc for new pilots is a disaster. I fly the majority of my trips with guys and gals who recently went through the program. Perhaps you should hear what some of them have to say before you claim that the company is blameless.

This statement could apply to multiple individuals. Perhaps it's time to clean house a bit.

You are correct that a union is not the answer. But management needs a major wake up call or we are going to end up with one out of desperation.

RI830

How long have you been with EAS?

bjtdrvr

[QUOTE=RI830
I can't get past the Teamsters unwillingness to keep the Hawker pilots at Hawker pay when they moved into the Phenoms.
Ken Ricci was willing to spend more, yet Teamsters wouldn't have any of it.


So you must have a problem then with all of the different airline unions as well? Because that is what a seniority system does. It is unfortunate but you cant have management just making up the rules to suite themselves. Later on the union offered a loa to allow pilots to come down and still retain their pay however that created a situation where there were now junior pilots making more than a couple of captains... the loa just stated that they could move down and keep their pay but the other more senior captains would then get a bump in pay to the same level BUT management was not interested in that!!!!! In fact is was only like two pilots and only for a few months until their pay scale caught up!!! It was management that refused to accept the loa!!! if memory serves me I think that those Hawker pilots could have been offered bumping rights and they could have displaced some beechjet and some phenom captains they then would have also retained their pay. Again management did not want to follow the contract because that would have forced several training events and they did not want to pay for them. Management was trying to work outside the contract and it seems then that the union was the bad guy but that was not the case as there was a perfectly valid way for those guys to retain their pay.