B727DRVR

troll
/trōl/
Learn to pronounce
noun
noun: troll; plural noun: trolls

1.
a person who makes a deliberately offensive or provocative online post.
a deliberately offensive or provocative online post.
2.
a line or bait used in trolling for fish.

verb

1.
make a deliberately offensive or provocative online post with the aim of upsetting someone or eliciting an angry response from them.
"if people are obviously trolling then I'll delete your posts and do my best to ban you"

Ahh...

UTR is back like the shingles with another obsessive, negative, trolling post about flyExclusive, his/her jilted ex-(or current) lover... As fun as it is addressing your assertions, UTR, I would first like to take a little survey on here on what my fellow aviators here on this forum think about your single-minded obsession with our Company and whether he/she is being an advocate for his/her former (or current...) fellow pilots here or simply a troll.. I hope that was not a run on sentence.. Before you do so, though, I encourage all of you to read every one of UTR’s negative posts about flyExclusive (Don’t worry; There are only 15, most recently as 3:31 AM, none the less, of them and they are all negative ones about us. Interestingly,UTR has no other interests on this forum.). Heck, while you’re at it, read mine, too, as a comparison.. After reading these posts, I ask you all these FOUR questions:

1) Do you think that UTR is making these posts about flyExclusive to help his fellow pilots or do you think he/she is obsessed with the Company and has an axe to grind, therefore trolling the Company on this Forum?

2) Would you try to hurt your former (or current) employer when you still (supposedly) have friends working there?

3) Do you find it odd that he/she seems to delight in tormenting the Company and that his/her only posts on this Forum are negative ones about flyExclusive?

4) If misfortune came to flyExclusive, do you think UTR would lament the misfortunes of his/her former (or current) Company and fellow team members, or would he take delight in it, given his/her posting history on this Forum?

OK, that ends the survey part of this post and I appreciate everyone’s time considering that. I am eagerly awaiting the results and feel free to chime in. So, belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, UTR! We missed you....

With that being said, and I have asked you this question before (and you never answer it...), what have I or your former/current fellow pilots ever done to you to deserve your incessant trashing of the Company? Aside from the 5 calls from MG one time and the denied Subway sandwich Reimbursement, and GOD FORBID being forced to file your own flight plans, what has you so obsessed, negative, and triggered? Here’s another question..: If flyExclusive succeeds, will you be happy for us or if we fail, will you mourn us? With your posting history, it seems very unlikely and that says a lot.

Moving on to your points, and some which are valid..:

FACT: If you are under 45 years old (or maybe even 50..), you are NUTS to not at least look into a Part 121 career considering the overall difference in pay and retirement that they enjoy over virtually EVERY Part 135 operator. Coming from a non-Regional, Part 121 background, I wholeheartedly agree with UTR’s assertion and say this to pilots every day. These are amazing times to be a pilot and I wish that I had been born 15 years later.. If you can go 121, you would be a fool to not at least consider it, especially if you can get on a Regional with a true flow to a Major. I know, thank you Captain Obvious.. Next....

FACT: As all workers do, we all had hoped for a better compensation package here, but most of us temper that with how fast our Company is growing and how well we are being treated. At 4.75 years old, we are already giving our competitors a run for their money, and things here continue to improve every day. As I have said many times on this Forum, most of here are very proud of our Company’s growth and are excited for our future. In 2000, nobody wanted to go to Executive Jet (now Netjets), and pilots were leaving UPS, FDX, and SWA to go to the “Majors”, only to be furloughed en masse after September 11 .. Who knew? We don’t have Warren Buffet of Kenny Dichter backing us, but we are moving in the right direction growing fast and things continue to improve here every day. I can’t think of one thing here that hasn’t improved or at least remained the same since I came here.

FACT: flyExclusive pilots are “forced” to do our own performance planning, weight and balances, file our own flight plans, pick our own hotels, and we are all fed up with it..... NOTTTTTT!!!!.. Dude, this assertion is ridiculous, and it shows that, other than other than your comment about our pilots wishing for more pay (Which is true...), you are really grasping at straws criticizing our flap settings and filing our own flight plans?!?! LOL, seriously? I am usually looking into my next flight over WiFi on my last trip of the day and it takes very little time to do it safely and efficiently... The fact that this is such a big deal to you is funny to me and obviously to others on this Forum. It’s like when you point out a beautiful woman (of interest, in my case) to someone, and they are digging so deep for straws that they say.. “Well....., look at her fingernails”!?!? LOL, if you are busting on us for that and our flap settings on intermediate stops, you are really trying hard. I am so glad that our pay scale was announced so you would have something with some validity to it to obsess over. In comparison, XOJET, NetJets, and maybe Flex get releases back like I did in my 121 days, while many of our other competitor’s pilots file their own. I promise you, when I upgraded, I didn’t shed a tear about this new “cross to bear”, and actually savored and enjoyed the new responsibility. When I started flying Fractional after the Great Recession (or Depression, if you were furloughed from 121 like was), I hadn’t filed my own flight plan for 10 years and had never heard of FltPlan.com...; I really enjoyed it. So, pity us poor FE pilots being subjected to these onerous and Draconian work rules, like filing our own flight plans and picking our own hotels.. According to UTR, we are all in Pergatory.. LOL!


FACT: There are other Part 135 carriers that pay better than we do, XOJET/VISTA, coming first to my mind. They are a slick, savvy operator that everything about them screams West Coast. All of my friends there are happy, and all but one have been there pushing two decades, all but one coming over from the Grand Aire/Swift pipeline to XO. With them, you start out in a super-Mid and their dispatchers give their pairings to ARINC, which files the flight plan for them! You should apply there, UTR, since the whole filing thing is so important to you. But they have a nearly 15 year head start on us to get this good, so give us some time. And less than a decade ago, they were still fighting the rolling rest battle before the new retired UAL Sheriff came to town and made a change for the better. I have absolutely nothing bad to say about them, and am excited for their future and I regularly steer people that way.

GAMA has better insurance than we do, and as a bigger Company with deep pockets support from Wheels UP, has better bargaining power for better insurance due to more employees. I have no less than 63 friends that have passed through, or are still flying for them, from SL, to HB, to CA, on down. Their recruiter, CA, is a great guy whom I met during my Recurrent at FSI. I wouldn’t think twice about sending a fellow pilot his way: GAMA is a class act!

DPJ currently offers travel benefits with Delta Airlines and offers a resume review and possible interview with DAL.. That may be changing soon, with the WUP acquisition, though..

TMC/Wheels Up currently offers an up to $30,000 sign on bonus, so that definitely helps to attract pilots.

So as UTR so triumphantly stated, there are certainly several other excellent options out there if you decide to go, or stay, in the Part 135 World.

Now to flyExclusive... We are a fast-growing Part 135 Company that is just shy of our 5th Birthday, yet we are right at 50 aircraft. Our pay, benefits, and working conditions have continued to improve, and while not as fast as we might want, historically have gotten better. You might get home a little later after a rotation of flying for us, but that is because we let our pilots live and commute out of places that none of our competitors will. I know because I checked, and I am one of those pilots enjoying a short drive to my small, minimally serviced airport thus I don’t complain about my 2 leg commutes through CLT or ATL getting me home between 5 PM and 8 PM on average. This benefit is huge to many of us here, and it is greatly appreciated. And yes, we advertise a quick hire and upgrade directly into a jet. But buyer beware... As a Captain here, you will be “forced” to do your own planning and book your own hotels. If the thought of that doesn’t keep you up at night, give us a shot. You will be in excellent company here as we have retirees from AA/USAirways, UAL, SWA, DL/NWA, NJA, as well as retired O-7’s, and retired pilots from every branch of the Military, along with a few losers like myself, LOL.