I’m going to give a detailed explanation of what its like working at Boutique Airlines. I’m currently a First Officer, and have been assigned 2 different crew bases.

This is a company thats experiencing a steep decline, not just in success but in quality of life for all employees at the company, not just pilots.

To start off the turnover at this company is staggering. Enthusiastic high performers come to this company, and within a few months the company runs them into the ground and they resign. It seems that every week a few people leave HQ including our finance controller, project managers, marketing managers and human resources. The only people that stay are low performers, and just do the bare minimum to get by.

DEN is the largest hub and its a complete disaster operationally. The company has been unwilling to hire staff, and its not uncommon for some crew members to have over 160 hours on a bi weekly paycheck. They literally have slept at the airport in the crew room night after night. The crew room itself is absolutely disgusting. HQ has been informed with pictures, but nothing has been done. Trash everywhere, boxes everywhere, unsecure with other airline employees coming into the room and stealing catering items and company property. It stinks like something has died in the room and has the most disgusting shag carpet.

They don’t have a dishwasher in any crew base and NONE of the company’s flasks for onboard coffee or tea are EVER cleaned--- DISGUSTING!

The staffing at DEN is so bad that they’ve been rotating station leads from other cities in and out. They’ve been working that staff to death to the point that the Regional Director of Customer Service just up and resigned with a notice that it was his last day. I honestly don’t understand why their largest hub city has been allowed to degrade to the point its at.

Lets talk about crew houses now. The company relies on CDO’s to operate. They are exhausting to work and not productive. You’ll be on duty for 12 hours and only rack up 2 hours of flight time. The company doesn’t put crews up in hotels but disgusting crew houses. The crew house in Chadron NE burns my eyes every time I’ve been there. Its unsafe, and too disgusting to even take your socks off. The crew house in Muscle Shoals doesn’t have a single chair, table, TV. Just a bed in your room. In Oakland there’s no AC, you have to sleep with the windows open and its in a bad neighborhood---the crew car has been stolen there. In Carlsbad New Mexico theres roaches, and roach droppings. Some of the crew houses have the same skidmarks in the toilet week after week. So you get the picture you won’t actually get any rest in them.

Scheduling; the company relies on CDOs. The top seniority guys will get cush day trips, and twice the hours as the low seniority guys. Captains get very little time. If you believed the lies and fly the King Air you’re probably pretty miserable as they are always broken down, and many King Air guys are not Denver based they were promised the plane in their home bases, but are then forced to commute to Denver for 12 hour duty periods for 2 hours of flight time on CDOs. Pretty awful quality of life.

Next lets talk management. Holy cow this is terrifying. Its near universal that no one trusts the Director of Operations MB, and everyone can’t stand our chief pilot BW. Both will pressure you to fly in unsafe weather conditions, and mechanical MELs that any sane person would refuse a flight over. They claim that they just want to have a talk to think about mitigating circumstances on the flight, but this is an outright lie. You’re constantly pressured to fly. The DEN ACP got struck by lightning in flight--- flying too close to a storm… what a moron.

Next for upper management. Recently the company CEO Sean Simpson sent out an email stating the company isn’t as profitable as he’d like. He claims we’re not losing money, but as a result of him not making enough money, he’s cutting everyone’s insurance benefits for greater employee contribution. Some pilots with a family are paying $600 more a month for coverage, and they can’t leave because they’re locked into a training contract. All of this because the CEO isn’t making enough money. There was understandable backlash and the CEO sent out a nasty email stating he’d rather they resign than protest the cuts. What a way to destroy morale at your company! Complete lack of leadership. The CEO also stated that they’re cutting maintenance personnel, pilots, and customer service agents. We’re already stretched thin enough as it is, and now they want to cut more staff and their benefits too?!

The CEO stated that he wants Boutique to run like a “normal” airline, to which many pilots replied that if we ran this place like a “normal” airline we’d have half of the completion rate that we do. So much stuff is brushed under the rug, its terrible.

That leads us to maintenance. Not one pilot will tell you the maintenance situation is by any means good. Even maintenance staff tell pilots they all want to leave and find better companies to work for. Many maintenance staff have left on their own. MELs are constantly deferred to the max.

To top off the maintenance situation, records have been deleted from the airplane logbooks. Dispatchers have lied to pilots about MELs and the reason for tail swaps. One aircraft that had a partial power loss in New Mexico and was grounded had the incident completely deleted from the airplane’s maintenance logbook a week later. WOW.

When you call maintenance with a write up, they’ll tell you its completely normal then when you pushback, dispatch will call you and tell you its legal to fly! Oh and the dispatchers many times are not licensed actual dispatchers. So basically they’re just flight followers. They don’t actually do weather, routing, fuel loads, weight and balance or anything. I guess by this measure I should call myself a Captain even though I’m not really a Captain. You’re literally on your own and if you’re not doing what they want, you’ll get sent to the Chief Pilot like a school child that needs a spanking. The company says they’re working under the “supervision” of a licensed dispatcher. Theres NO WAY I’d put my certificate on the line for the kind of crap they lead you to believe is legal and safe to fly in. Totally degrading and pathetic.

When you do have a maintenance issue and its clear that you will time out before maintenance can be completed they still force you to stay at the airport until you actually time out. There’s no point in this other than to be jerks.

Duty on times are forged by the company as well. Policy states that you must duty off 15 minutes after block in. This isn’t nearly enough time to shut down, escort passengers off, check oil, clean the interior, empty cargo bags, secure the aircraft, fill out flight logs, fill out duty logs, write up maintenance items and call dispatch to duty off. You always end up staying 30 minutes or longer, yet the company forces you to forge your FAA 128 duty rest document to shorten your rest periods. How the FSDO POI hasn’t been all over this, I don’t know.

That brings up the FSDO POI, they obviously aren’t doing a great job because this much crap is being brushed under the rug. One captain called the POI and the POI called the Director of Operations and told him that captain was calling him for answers on an issue.

Make no mistake if you complain about these issues you will be labeled a problem and the company will retaliate against you. One Captain in DFW who flew in the Army had scare tactics, and his assistant chief pilots mentioned “rumors” about him to pressure him to leave. Even after he submitted his 3 week notice, the company was pressing him to do a checkride with less than a week left when it wasn’t due---obviously so they could put a 135 check ride failure on his record. Its meant to send a message to other pilots to stay in line.

The company originally wanted a Pilot Advisory Committee and company policy states that there’s supposed to be monthly telephone meetings and quarterly in person meetings. The company got an earful from pilots at the first meeting. They haven’t met in 4 months and have no plans to. They just want you to shut up and color.

There is a mass exodus of pilots right now. The crappy low time guys and street captains with checkride failures will stay though. Combined with fresh FO’s this is a recipe for disaster especially with winter coming.

The company states that FO’s are captains in training, but this is a farce. You’ll just be told to shut up and color. With the amount of turnover, work environment, maintenance issues, being a captain here is putting your certificate on the line. Most captains tell FO’s dont bother to upgrade, just leave at 1500 for a regional. Thats pretty telling. I’ve got 3 months until I hit 1500, staying would be chasing fools gold. Many captains have told me that they think its a matter of time before we have a serious accident here.

If you look at either PlaneSense of Tradewinds you’ll make 50% more as an FO and get paid per diem. They seem to want higher quality applicants.
In closing is BTQ better than flight instructing…. It depends. If you’re at a pilot mill and you get handed pilots and lesson plans, then you’ll get better quality of life and faster time with them. If you’re at a part 61 flight school and have to stand at the front desk like a hooker on a street corner for new students than BTQ is probably the better alternative.

But just know that this isnt the company it used to be. Your chief pilots will not have your back. You will be pressured to fly in unsafe conditions for completion factor. You will have a lower quality of life.