Originally Posted by
PeteyT
I don't know what the delay is now, but hiring has slowed dramatically. It was 3-4 months when they were hiring as fast as they could, so 6 months is believable.
But
please, for your own benefit, consider better options. Do a
lot of research before you decide to commit to Piedmont. There's almost no reason to come here. It's a below-average airline in so many ways.
- The pay is below average. There are first officers at other airlines making more than our captains. Not only are our pay rates low, we have very little soft-pay. If you don't pick up extra flights, expect only 75 hours of pay/month.
- The flying blows. A lot, if not most, of our flights are less than an hour (wheels up to down). You'll regularly fly to airports with no control tower, or outside of the towers operating hours. Don't be surprised if you have to pick up a clearance by phone.
- The schedules are absolutely horrible. Expect scheduled deadheads several times a month. Expect long sits out of town. Our schedules are so bad we've simultaneously got the lowest days off in the industry (working 19 days/month) and pathetic block values (65-75 hours block).
- We're flying old clapped-out airplanes discarded by sister regionals. We were supposed to get brand new 175s, but the FAA decided we couldn't be trusted with them.
- Most of the management and administrative staff have no business operating a modern airline. They should be running a tire shop.
- Our technology is dated. (Trading trips is this silly process of sending an email to scheduling, getting no response, and calling them later to see if they decided to grant your request.)
- The only objective reasons to come here, quickest flow and rapid growth, no longer exist.
Do yourself a favor. You can go elsewhere and make more money, have more days off, fly nicer and more capable airplanes, build time faster, upgrade quicker, and work for a more modern airline.
Thanks a lot! I looked at a couple contracts at the first group of the regionals I am targeting. Crunched some numbers, and actually Piedmont is not at the bottom contract-wise. Granted I did not run all scenarios (like picking up open time, comparing it to regionals with duty/trip rigs, etc )because that is really time consuming.
I heard about the schedules being pretty inefficient as well. Good to see there was someone trying to help improve this. Our CP at my current shop did something great too and I have a lot of respect for him. I hope to do some public service at some point too. Really. At the end of the day there is no perfect regional and the best I can do is pick a place that is workable, try to make that place a little better during my time there, and avoid the really bad ones that can put a dent in my career.
Right now the "really good" regionals seem to have long wait for class dates. I dig new planes, but can't afford to wait a couple months just for that. Worst, the ones that have new planes (at least the two of them where my friends work), had longer reserve time and have been really fat on FOs, >> non line holders flying like 300 hours in a year. Another friend who went to a less popular regional blocked like 900 that year and upgraded at 14 months.
Would like your opinion here though :: where would you go if you were I ? Just want to see what you think. Thanks
