Originally Posted by
TomMc1881
Thank you for the update. I was recently forced into early retirement when ExpressJet folded up shop last September. I'll be 64 next month, so another airline job is not promising. Not enough cash in the IRA to fully retire at this point, so looking for a jet charter gig. Any further info on Nicholas would be appreciated, along with recommendations for other home-based operations.
Stay far away. If you want to work somewhere good where they actually try to make it a place you WANT to work, (instead of a place where they force you to work through an endentured servitude training contract), have a look at Wheels Up, or really, almost anywhere else. You won’t be sorry.
I was at NA for 11 months, a few years ago, and (at the risk of outing who I am), I’m involved in being sued by them for the “promissory note,” non-prorated, 150% of the cost of training, even though I left them due to multiple breaches of my contract on their part—which is specifically a non-repayment situation. They don’t care. NJ is a bully and an a-hole.
They will make you sign a non-prorated “promissory note” for 12 months (in my case), but they don’t start the 12 month calendar until you finish IOE, which they will drag out as long as possible. For me, three months, when it should have been 1-2 tours max (like everywhere else I’ve worked). You’ll still be under that contract months after the training in question is no longer valid, and they’ll ant you to sign another one for recurrent, with both in effect at the same time. (at least, that’s how it was).
Every single bad thing you’ve read about them in this thread is 100% true.
They refused to pay me a few times for scheduled days off that I worked. They tried to get me to break duty/rest regulations a few times, but I wouldn’t do it. The (then) DO told me to “stop annoying me with that GOM bullsh*t”, when I pointed out the company’s own GOM said ALL flights would be treated as part 135, and that it also spelled out the duty and rest requirements for all aircrew, and that section was part 135 crew duty/rest regulations word for word. He told me, more than once, that the GOM isn’t regulatory! Just remember who’s ultimately responsible if anything goes wrong (hint: It starts with the letters P I C). I honestly can’t believe they haven’t lost their certificate, specially after the FAA investigation confirmed they had been threatening to fire pilots who refused to break duty/rest regulations. One of he guys I flew with, who took over an airplane when I went off tour, told me they played that 135/91 switcheroo and had him on duty for almost 18 hours, with no compensatory rest.