i was just going to stay out of this post but I will just put in my 2 cents worth. I have posted numerous times about my experience at PNCL- my first year gets wrapped up today- I hold what I need off and fly with some great people. It is an all-jet fleet and the flying is fun. I will not sugarcoat the fact that there is a good bit of tension between mgmt and the pilot group. The pay is low, almost rediculous, but that is something you know when you apply here. I came through at $200/wk and was given the 1099 tax bill in feb. The only positive is I was almost able to write off more than I made being a contractor- all you luggage, headset, moving exp.,insurance- look into the IRS rules. If the company is going to play games by being a "contractor" you can write things off as being a contractor. I do think you should be an employee from day 1 though. As far as losing planes- the deal we have is 2 a month. We have -900's showing up at about the same rate so its business as usual. We are understaffed anyway so don't expect a furlough over a few planes leaving. We are staffed 3:1, the delta flying alone requires 5:1 staffing. WE NEED PILOTS! It will be interesting come november and december around here with guys timing out. I am well on my way to being done by early DEC and I was on rsv for the first 2 months of the year! The contract will remain to be a dark cloud over the company but -in my opinion- once the -900s show up and we run out of those bidding it for convenience (live in atl or commute through atl) the company will be forced to come to the table. I wish you the best and you need to make a decision for yourself of where you are, where you want to be, and how fast you want to be there. If you live in MSP and want to stay somewhere I am sure XJ would be better in the long run (at least looking at the current contract) but if you want to get in/get out with 1000 hrs of jet time a year and upgrade as fast as possible PNCL may be hard to beat. Either way I wish you luck and if you have any questions PM me and I will give you my phone number so I can answer any questions you may want to ask.