It's a bit of a mystery. We normally have 720 ish pilots. Now we are up to 870 ? Something like that. Could be for attrition, lots of ca/fo's leaving. not really sure what we are doing. Lots of rumors, some lead to growth. You probably know more that us, awac pilots are kept in the dark about the future. All I know is that for a company many believe to be "closing" they sure know how to spend a lot of money before they do so.

Reserves get worked . More like abused as far I as know. Open time varies, usually easy to swap or pick up the occasional trip.

 

We are hiring for 2 classes a month with no end in sight. Were over 800 pilots now.

 

Right but why the over 800pilots for 71 airplanes? Is there plan to get more planes? Cannot find anything about awac growth online to save my life......anyone inside know anything....how many hours do reserve get to fly?

 

I want to say when I was hired in Jan 2006, I was in the low 800s.

 

Any words of advice for getting through groundschool? Any reading material or other pre-prep that would make the groundschool experience for a firstimer more smooth? Any and all suggestions welcomed.

 

They will send you everything you need before you show up. Do you have a class date?

 

No, I haven't gotten a class date yet. I'm hoping to hear this week, definatly looking forward to some good news.

 

We had 800+ pilots in 05/06. Now the list is much more senior. Resulting in more vacation. Also out of my class of 10 or so. There are only 2 left. 3 just got jobs at other carriers in the last month. Nothing out of the ordinary right now.

 

couple of things, as far as new hires, we are hiring a lot. There seems to be no end in sight. There also is more wash out than normal, but don't let that scare you, I think it is simply the fact that many new hires have no 121 experience. AWAC has always been blessed with new hires from 121 background and the training dept has had trouble moving toward truly new airline pilots. Pay attention, try hard, have good attitude and its easy, they will go a long way to help the right people, bad attitude, and they will ask you to write a resignation letter and show you the door.

As far as growth, I don't think anyone knows. Meaning not AWAC, not Eagle, not RAH, and not AAL. But I will say, they are spending money, and beefing up numbers, but that doesn't mean anything, we had high numbers in 06 with the assumption we were getting additional flying from Midwest. We did not get that flying, who knows why, lots of guesses, but in hindsight it was genius. SkyWest got it and has been playing musical airplanes ever since. My gut is AWAC is a player, we have money, its as good or better than any regional to work for. I think the future is fluid and fast moving right now. I am fairly certain that we were going to fly CRJ900s for Delta if Pinnacle voted down TA. That was never announced nor put out for bid, but that's the kind of behind closed door things AWAC does, they answer to no one, and are VERY connected throughout the industry.

Just one guys thoughts

 

It has been described to me by instructors as a tendency for new-hires now to require more than the traditional 10 (?) sim lessons. That is where people are getting this idea of a high washout rate. The higher "failure" rate is a "failure" for the new-hires to get signed off for their check-ride using only the standard allotted 10 lessons. Apparently there have been some who are unable to pass on their first attempt but have been successful on subsequent attempts. These technically count towards a "training failure".