I flew the ATR in SJU from about August '07 to the end of Feb '08 before heading back to the mainland. Not a long time I admit, and I only got about 200 hours on the plane, but I thought it was a fairly fun aircraft to fly! You could be abeam the numbers for Runway 8 at 8000ft and have no problem getting that thing down while still keeping it inside the bridge (if you go down there you'll find out what I'm talking about)! The flying down there is some of the most fun and interesting you will probably ever do in your life!!! Beef...Nevis...St. Kitts....Canouan (spelling??)....St. Maarten!....DOMINICA!!!! Great times and I definitely miss that flying. The ATR is not at all a bad plane. Yes, it can be difficult to land and will surprise you sometimes, but it's not as bad as most people make it out to be. It is a fairly simple airplane, but yes somethings have to be done manually vs. something like the EMB-145 (my most recent aircraft) where a lot of those items are automated.

My biggest gripe with it (and this isn't the aircraft's fault) is that we were not allowed to use HOTEL mode (for air conditioning on the ground) and it has no APU so it gets hella hot in that cockpit while on the ground!!! Bring one shirt for every day you will be flying The ATR does have some maintenance issues because they are starting to get kinda old and have lots of cycles on them. Plus maintenance just defers everything

SJU is not the nicest place in the world to live, but is no where near as bad as everyone says. There are some areas of poverty that I stayed away from, but you could find almost anything there that you could in the states. I didn't speak any spanish besides words like "salida", "el bano", and of course "PUTA"! Not speaking spanish definitely makes life more difficult, but I still think it was a good life experience and I would do it again.

There are great people down there and I hope you have some fun!