Originally Posted by
atpcliff
I believe for the "average" US pilot, especially if they are age 40 or below, DAL/AA/UAL is better than Atlas.
That being said, here are some examples of "attack mode" I have experienced lately:
Scheduled for 24/7 (day off) where I didn't want to be, followed by business class airline seat and very short time in a second location before a trip. I called scheduling and asked to fly in about 12 hours to the second location, with a 24/7 in the there, instead. Scheduling said no problem and changed everything.
After a trip was postponed, the captain I was with called hotels and asked them to change my hotel to the hotel where the rest of the crew was staying...hotels made the reservation.
I called travel and asked them to fly from my Gateway on DAL on a specific flight. They booked asked if I wanted an aisle or a window seat, and booked it immediately.
Of course, things don't always go your way, and sometimes the company screws up, usually with ground transportation or hotels...they aren't perfect. For example, I was recently with a Capt and they forgot our ground transport in FRA. We got a hold of them, and they told us to just take a cab and charge it to the company credit card. We got a cab and away we went, problem solved quickly.
For many of us Atlas is a good job. With the new contract it will be better. How much? We don't know. If it is a lot better, then more guys will want to come here and will stay. If it is a little better, then less guys will want to come here and more will leave.
Good luck to you, God Bless, and namaste.
Cliff, Glad you had a good Atlas month. I had a pretty typical month too.
Managed to conflict bid my training, so they changed my patter to all reserve. No problem that's expected. When they finally figured out my pattern they made my flight reservations, but I found myself sitting in my living room waiting for the limo they owed me but failed to set up so they had to make all new flight arrangements. Finally made it to CVG and left on my trip. 2 days in, they cancel my training and move it the end of the month during days that weren't even available during the training bid. So now I've lost my line and whatever seniority I had to get that line. I lost the seniority it took to get the training slot I wanted and they violated the seniority of every other bidder by giving me a slot that wasn't available for them to bid on.
Finished off the trip with a broken oven out of ANC and it took at least 3 trips from catering and multiple requests to get food that we could eat without heating it up that wasn't the same exact salad.
BTW, did you get paid for making your transportation arrangements from FRA? This happens to me more that 50% of the time in FRA. Somebody got paid to make those arrangements and didn't. Just another in a long line of other departments dropping the ball and making the pilots make up for their lack of work.