Pros
- Good equipment. The phenoms are kept in good working order and write ups are fixed pretty quickly. The jet is also extremely easy to operate once you get the hang of the avionics. Tons of information and SA.
- Paperless cockpits. We are nearly there. iPads have already arrived, and within a year I am confident that 100% of our paperwork will be done through the iPad. Save the trees!
- 10/5 schedule. It may still sound brutal, but with the way our schedule works ( standby days sprinkled in here and there) it's actually quite nice now. tag a vacation day or two on, and suddenly you have a full week off.
- Good bunch of pilots. Most guys here are easy to get along with. You can look forward to having a good time on an overnight.
- Rental cars, hotels, general 'freedom' on layovers. At the current time, we still have a great deal of control over where we stay and what we do on layovers. Hotel standby is 1 hour to airport and 1 hour wheels up. So as long as you can make it work, go fishing, go to the beach, hike, bike, explore.
That's all I can come up with for now, but you get the jist.
Cons
- As previously mentioned, lack of a real pay-scale. You lose a ton of money staying here over the long term. Take jet suite for example. You can go there, be typed on only one jet, and make way more as a captain. EAS needs to address this eventually.
- Hotel and meal budgets are pretty difficult to work with in some cities. Not sure of a solution to this. Some guys want per diem, others think it would be worse? I don't know of a great solution to this.
- Lack of profit sharing or any incentive based programs. I'm not sure how many companies do this, but why shouldn't the pilots be rewarded for saving fuel and making smart purchases? It would reward those who care for their companies future, and discourage the crowd who just say "screw it" and ignore prices, waived fees, etc (yes, there are guys like this)
- medical deductibles are a bit ridiculous, but I'm not going to blame the company for this one.
There you have it. I'm hoping others chime in with a few more, but that's what I could come up with over my morning coffee
Overall I'm very happy here. But the lingering fear is longevity at this point.