Originally Posted by Azorian

I have personally not had a bad experience at Boutique, it has its share of complainers, and its share of BS like any airline.

I have not once been pressured to fly in conditions i thought were unsafe. One call to dispatch, "im taking a delay for weather at the destination, probably not longer than an hour" and the response is "ok we will post an update, just keep us in the loop" is pretty much universally the answer.

I have never once been questioned or gotten a call from an ACP on a mechanical discrepancy, or been told "just do it under 91" whatever... not one time have i had that happen.

Where boutique struggles in my opinion:

1. Boutique needs to get out of bidding days off and hand building the schedule every month and switch to bidding lines of flying. its faster, its easier, and seniority based

2. Boutique needs to build infrastructure and then grow, not grow and THEN build infrastructure... that's how companies fail

3. everyone needs to realize what kind of company this is, its a small, part 135 EAS company using single engine planes where the average employee age is a ballpark of 24 years old. This isnt American Airlines. So you have guys who call in sick 16 times in a 6 month period (no really). If i ran a shop and you called in sick 3 times a month you would surely get a warning letter. lets get real.

4. finally, the training contract. 2 years 14K? give me a break. What PIC qualified guy is going to want to come to boutique air, and sign a contract for two years and owe the company a large sum of money when he can just instruct, tow banners, beg steal or borrow flight time for another few months and go get the big $20K bonus at Mesa or Envoy etc?? what PIC in their right mind is going to sign the dotted line with boutique in this climate? And upgrades from within... doesnt seem to be happening at all for some reason, other than the fact that your FOs dont want to upgrade and enter into yet another contract when they can just right seat for a couple of months and bounce to Mesa or Envoy and collect the bonus. Boutique is approaching its staffing issues the wrong way.


EDIT:

kill two birds with one stone, you got tons of 18, 19, 20 year olds out there who want to be pilots, but cant afford the time or the education.

Hire those aspiring pilots as CSAs and have them sign a 4 year contract, 2 years of which is agreement to work as a CSA, while boutique covers all or some of the cost of their Private, Commercial Single and Instrument rating. Any license or rating you want beyond that is on the CSAs dime. Once your two year is up as a CSA, you owe boutique air the remaining 2 years as a pilot with an appropriate pay penalty if you quit early.

boom, you have CSAs flowing in (which face it, we need to grow that infrastructure as long as SS is swallowing up EAS routes left and right) and you have a stream of inbound pilots on the hook for two years