Advice for new hire training
 

Hello folks,


I was recently hired by Zulu Whiskey. I read through the 'managing risk/thriving in new hire training' thread and still have a question for you. Let me say that I am positive on the company based on what the HR and pilots said during the interview and my own research. I am of an age and experience where I know the kind of environment that is right for me--If the whole "family atmosphere" aspect presented in the interview is accurate, then I think this is an environment where I can thrive. That said, I know what it is like to work hard, like to work with others, and have a positive/optimistic attitude to make it through.



My question is, for you senior folks out there with the company, what is your single best piece of advice to help me get through new hire training? I don't mind if you emphasize something that's already been said in the previous thread. My business here is to succeed well above the margin and ultimately to become a line holding captain. The base I am eyeing (CAE) is easily commutable.



I am a mid-forties financially secure male with a previous successful career in an unrelated field, been a CFI for more than a decade with a couple years very part time commercial FO experience in 135 turboprops. I have some prior 121 experience a few years back though I never flew the line due to extenuating (became a primary caregiver) circumstances.


Any advice is greatly appreciated.

I’m sure lots of people will have advice for you, but I just want to warn you that CAE is not easily commutable. You will likely be traveling down a day early and back a day late because almost every trip starts with an early show on day 1 and a late finish on day 4, leaving you no contractual commute options on day 1 and no outbound flights on day 4.

My advice to you is ATTITUDE
Maintain a good, positive and upbeat attitude and they’ll work with you.
Nobody is out to fail you. They all want to see you succeed.
Is it easy? Is it a cakewalk? NO! Be prepared to work study and work and study. Your life will be put on hold for a while. As long as you come prepared and show enthusiasm and willingness to learn and not argue with instructors, you’ll succeed.


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Completely agree!

How many days would you say are typically off between trips? I am about 1.5 hours north of IAD by car. Does the situation with the early starts/late finishes look like it might be resolved anytime soon?

Thanks, that sounds like great advice. Being positive and upbeat is definitely something I can handle, and I enjoy the challenge of hard work/study. Would you say that the "family atmosphere" part is accurate?

That’s good, because that’s actually driveable, assuming you can get IAD.
That’s great, because it’s so damned funny...:D:D

HAHAHAHA. it’s only getting worse month by month.

Is it an issue of understaffing at CAE?

almost every trip in every domicile these days start before 9am and finish after 7pm. Staffing is a different issue.

65 ac vs 547 pilots at Air Whiskey is what? 8.4 pilots per aircraft?

By contrast, Republic has 2445 for 189 or 12.9.

Piedmont has 746 for 48 or 15.5.

TSA has 600 for 63 or 9.5.

Only Mesa at 1200 for 145 is comparable at 8.3.

OF COURSE STAFFING IS A FACTOR. They need to work the tails off their pilots to have adequate manning to fly the aircraft.

Air Whiskey is where you go if you don’t really care about quality of life and just want to log hours and move on quickly to somewhere better. And if that’s what you want, it’s great. If not, not so great.

But WHY ON EARTH would you want CAE when you live a 90 minute drive from IAD? That REALLY sounds like self inflicted punishment.

That’s easy—I want the most efficient route to not sitting reserve, and to upgrading. I do have a business to run at home which fortunately can be done pretty easily over the phone and computer. Now if things were to change at IAD from what I am hearing about long reserve times, that might sweeten the pot.

Hard to run a business when you’re wasting half your off days commuting and most overnights are 12 hours or less. Most schedules are 4 on, 3 off, so you’ll be lucky to have one full day off at home. Over integration (the first and last few days of the month) when schedules overlap you’ll likely end up working six days in a row with one day off with relative frequency.

Guess you didn’t read the part where he said he can run his business over the phone or from a computer.

Attitude is everything. And also get in and get out as quick as you can to the majors so you can get some QOL back.

Yea, Because this industry hires caucasian men at the rate subway hands out napkins for a $12 footlong.

:)







:d

Even if they hired every single woman/black guy/black woman/unicorn no questions asked that would probably be not even 10% of the professional pilot population. So while your chances are lower because of that it's definitely a terrible attitude to have blaming outside forces instead of taking responsibility for your own improvement.

Can you please placard a copy of this in every airplane? Couldn’t agree more.

There’s an easy fix if you want it:

Guide for Aviation Medical Examiners

Decision Considerations - Aerospace Medical Dispositions
Item 48. General Systemic - Gender Dysphoria
Gender Dysphoria - All Classes
Disease/Condition Evaluation Data Disposition
A. Completed gender reassignment surgery 5 or more years ago
OR
Treated with hormone therapy for 5 or more years

ISSUE
Annotate block 60.

This is still going on? Reminds me of the seat back cards they did a few years ago. There’s no family atmosphere at “Zulu whiskey.” Unless your idea of a family is an alcoholic father who will turn on you at any second, beating you to a pulp and a crack***** of a mother who will shove a plate of food ($hit sandwich—think contract negotiations, denied to maintain rsv coverage -PG, how much does the APU battery weigh) in front of you and tell you to eat it.

Enough about the family atmosphere. I would say that Awa really focuses more on its midwestern values 🙄

Given the profanity in the response, I'm thinking you worked for them and quit or got fired. Want to give more specific example?

Wasn't my experience at all. My stay was brief: I didn't agree with the domicile planning and some of the scheduling policies, ended up making life there untenable, so I made the big-boy choice to move on.

But while I was there, what *didn't* I worry about? Well, I didn't worry about the next CA I was going to get paired with. The worst, most cantankerous example was...manageable as an FO, and easy enough to get along with. The most enjoyable, I looked forward to when I saw their name on my schedule (btw: how was Fiji?).
I got my fair share of legs, which is important to me because I like to fly; on one ORD-MKE leg the AP was engaged for all of three minutes...so I could brief the approach.
The domicile ACP (now the CP) was responsive to texts, or to sit and shoot the breeze if he was in his office.
...And even scheduling; I got the impression they didn't like some of their **** policies that they were bound to implement any more than I did.
I couldn't stay. But the people I worked with aren't the reason I left.

...fwiw.

How long is the whole training footprint these days?

Anywhere from 3 to 6 months depending on your luck.. cpt and sims are backed up and they are out of seniority order. There are people from January done with training while others who still have cpt, sims and ioe left. Which is about 6 weeks of training. There are also people who started at the end of February and maybe even March in the sims and IOE. So it’s a toss up and luck of the draw. :confused:

New hire training video?

https://youtu.be/-ZYlXEUo-Lo


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