Originally Posted by NatGeo

It's an okay company to work for. Just don't think it is leaps and bounds different than Ameriflight.

I kind of laughed when I heard the guy mention "reserve pilots." If there is a reserve pilot that day, he will likely be the one guy who is a 20 year Alpine lifer and just does reserve 5 days a week. What I'm trying to say is the company does not hire enough pilots to maintain quality of life.

The chief pilot is a hands off chief pilot who doesn't stand up to the Mormon owner of the company. The chief pilot delegates full control of the base to the assistant chief pilots with limited oversight. If the assistant chief pilot at your base sucks, than you will likely get annoyed overtime with your crappy schedule.

It takes forever to get hired on at this company, because the chief pilot is so afraid to pull the trigger on a new candidate. (Again related to fear of owner) He failed to hire a 21 year old from Alaska with 600 hours of SIC 1900 time. You have to call and talk to the chief pilot on the phone to have any chance of being hired 9-12 months down the road.

One of my main complaints with the company was there was very little appreciation for having a perfect attendance schedule. If you work for them, don't be afraid to take a sick day once a month. That is what I would have done had I known about this beforehand.

The chief pilot bothered me about my black new balance tennis shoes once a month. Again, your attendance record will not be valued by the chief pilot. Call in sick once a month and you will have a better quality of life.

If you delay because of weather, expect to get a call from the chief pilot in 30 mins asking you about your decision. One day Ameriflight cancelled all of their flights do to weather. I decided to delay and definitely felt pressured by the chief pilot to get a move on. I delayed for 5-6 hours and still managed to find a microburst.

Alpine wants to be better/bigger than Ameriflight, but like many corporate races, in many ways I felt it was a race to the bottom. Your quality of life will be better at an Alpine base that does not have Ameriflight there too. At the bases they share, both Alpine and Ameriflight are probably trying to outbid each other monthly to UPS to get more routes. That is why the quality of life sucks so much at those bases.

The maintenance at the company was very good. Far better than Ameriflight.