Originally Posted by
CaptUnderhill
Am I right to assume that you can get hired directly as a captain at Cape Air? (You don't have to start as an FO). The reason I ask is I see their pay scale starts at $9.00/duty hr. I just don't see how anyone could possibly live at any of their bases making that amount. Their hour requirements seem steep as well. You could almost go to a regional with what their requiring. Just want some clarification, that's all.
If you qualify for an ATP (not R-ATP) or already have one, you can get hired as captain. If you have 1200 hours you can get hired as PIC which is in between FO and CA pay.
It's not the easiest flying so I feel it's justified. I just spent a winter here and you have to be on top of your game flying in the winter environment. These hour requirements are also regulations of course (need an ATP to be a pax carrying captain at 135 commuter).
Living on FO pay is tough, not going to lie. I would suggest low time people come here not too early so you don't burn out on the low pay.
Now, a new contract is also being worked on and it sounds as if it must be in place by about July... The reason being, Cape Air just bought a seaplane operation in Florida that they must have on the contract by I think end of June. A few interesting things come from this. The seaplane pilots are supposedly getting $55K salary. In order to bring them aboard, pay for all 402 pilots (FO, PIC, CAs) will have to move up (some have said 4 years) and be close to $55K. Also with the lack of pilots, there are tons of incentive days to pick up and things like retention bonuses, shorter duty days, centralized basing, etc being talked about. It's quite an exciting time at Cape Air actually. None of this is official but it is what is being worked on.