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Old 03-12-2014 | 02:09 PM
  #83  
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Sunvox
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From: UAL retired
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Originally Posted by Moombabeach
You say get Unified yet you subtly bash CAL pilots and say how great the UAL way was?.... Yet you know nothing of what it was actually like to work at CAL, you want to be unified, drop the Old UAL bullcrap, that's a dead, broken, long gone airline. Most of the ex UAL guys I fly with like the CAL side better, it's a much more pleasant place to work. If you want unification let go of the past yourself.
Well I do know a little about how "the CAL side" works as I have a whole 6 weeks under my belt as a 756 FO. So far this is what I've had to listen to:

1) No CAL pilot ever wanted this merger.
2) United was like the Titanic; it kept running into the iceberg over and over.
3) It's all about the W2.
4) You know what junior CAL pilots have learned from all this? It's better to be a SCAB because they have the best careers.


and then there's the other trivia:

1) no one knew about escape routes over Greenland including LCA.
2) cockpit had numerous items worth writing up, but "we don't worry about that small stuff"
3) all flight planning done at the hotel without any FO input
4) crew desk took away a flying id and converted me to IRO for another FOs IOE. That's a grievance, but apparently it is standard operation at CAL and the FOs don't complain.
5) 78 hours min a month for bid range versus 70 on UAL side. For the W2 worshippers that's great but for those of us happy to make our minimum who want to enjoy life at home that's two days lost at work.
6) meals: your specific crew meal doesn't exist and you eat when the FAs finish their service. None of this eating first crap. The pilots are last.
7)Most guys bring their own minitel because minitels aren't always in the cockpit. Apparently they kept getting stolen and now the company has taken to putting a metal collar on the wires and screwing them into the sidewall to keep them from getting stolen but meantime most CAL pilots seem to think it is their responsibility to bring their own minitel.
8) International law prohibits flying ECON over the Atlantic but that's how they do it at CAL. Manage ECON to stay close but not exactly on speed because they told ATC that they agreed ATC could give them the speed but ATC couldn't tell them HOW to fly that speed so using ECON is ok. and of course CAL saves sooooo much gas by playing around with ECON the whole way across instead of just putting in .80. Yeah .80 would be too easy


So far NOT impressed and actually very disappointed that I already ran into Captains that are willing to bring politics into the cockpit. To me not so professional and it will make for a sadly tortuous career based in EWR if they are the "norm". Hopefully I just got unlucky on my first couple flights and things will get better. At least that's what I'm hoping . . .

Last edited by Sunvox; 03-12-2014 at 02:36 PM.
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