Originally Posted by
randomroute
No one questions what Mexi does.
Now, let’s cut the crap. All you guys here at Swift that have the whole “Ive made the best of Swift” attitude BECAUSE YOU GUYS ARE CAPTAINS!
Regardless of the low relative pay, you can meet the cost of living. You can own a home. You can have expensive hobbies, you can goto work and (here at Swift) do absolutely nothing but call for a checklist. The amount of money a captain can make at Swift would make quite apot of regional/part 135/LCC pilots strongly consider switching. Which is what happened to myself and others. We made the leap expecting the implied guarantee of extremely fast upgrades. Theres guys at Swift on their FIRST jet as PIC WITH LESS THAN 300 in type. You think they are complaining about cost of living and broken promises? Of course not! They are getting begged to fly!
When you look at all the incidents and accidents that Swift Air has experienced theres always one common question “WHAT IN THE ABSOLUTE EFF WAS THAT CAPTAIN THINKING?!?!”
Answer: They werent, they were just lucky guys that fell into the left seat of a 737. I like the people I work with. They are cool. No one here can say our coworkers suck. Its the people pulling the strings that make this place sucky. And Im not talking about ‘executive level’ management.
So yeah, write about how great it is, but provide some context of full disclosure.
Being an F/O at swift sucks a$$.
Being an F/Onat swift and watching contract pilots that are getting paid more than you waiting in the jetbridge sucks a$$.
Being at a company where management allows foreign workers to come in to subvert the seniority list sucks a$$.
So yeah, keep talking about how its not that bad.
I’m doing OE with the contract pilots, they’re not making more than our guys in Europe, apparently they had to pay for their visas, medicals and other fees to their broker too. Less per diem per day too. So they’re not breaking the bank as everyone else thinks. Not to mention the snag that not all of them have the visas to be transiting in and out of the US every day which has affected getting their OE done. Only a few of them poses the crew visas that allow multiple re-entry. So a lot of what they need to work here is not sponsored by swift or their contractor.
Not everyone had an instantaneous upgrade here. I spent 8 months working my butt off here as an FO over 4 years ago. Then when it did happen spent another 8 months waiting to finish OE, because we were so short new FOs took priority in being trained. I don’t know what luxuries we live in? If someone is making a lot of money here it’s because they’ve taken away a lot of their time off to make it.
The best strategy as I try to tell new guys is do good around here, the more you stir the hornets nest they’re going to see that as you’re going to cause problems as a captain and they don’t want that. Remember the roots of this place has always been the VIP flying, a level head and ounce of humility go along way here. Not just for the company but for the customers. Happy customers become repeat customers which help all our livelihoods here. It’s a butterfly effect. We have people who have been waiting a while to upgrade and have finally been given the opportunity here shortly to start the process. Most who have worked their butt off building the 121 time they didn’t have. The road hasn’t been easy but they’ve stayed the course! We have really good people here and when I see them have the opportunity to advance makes it sad that I won’t be able to fly with them anymore because they’ll be in the left seat.
Remember this is a small place and everyone knows everything. Good or bad it goes up the grape vine quick. It’s not like a big airline where your number comes up and it’s only a matter of whether you make it or wash out through upgrade, where no one knows or cares who you are. There’s definitely a human factor to it here, which is good and bad. But I feel they see it as a viability for their customers to trust the person they’ve put in charge of 189 pax or 68 hockey players who pay millions a year to fly with us. Believe me when they spot an issue with someone they’ve put in that position they will be quick to react. Fly standard, always cover your @$$ and be ready to back up your inhibitions when you claim something is un-airworthy, unsecure or outside of the realm of safety. Because if you’re wrong they will call you out quick!