Saltlife85

Are the Spirit pilots “undesirable”? What about Frontier, Allegiant, Sun country, Kallitta, ABX, Flexjet, Netjets, and all the other fractionals?? What about the regional pilots who choose to stay at the regionals? Honestly, what do you think buddy? I’m curious.

WutFace

Not for long, I bet. I'm sure there are plenty where you're at who are actively digging to find out what arrogant, ex-mil, new hires from AS they've got in their ranks. Can't be too many who fit that profile.

And they will terminate your probie *ss.

Baradium

I just hope it's not mine. The stuff you say is embarrassing to the profession.

Bluetruth

First jetBlue is not some hollow shell company who has a day of reckoning coming anymore than the rest of the current majors.

Second, jetBlue absolutely strategically drove up the price of Virgin and then sat back trying not to smile while Alaska swallowed down that poisoned horse pill.

Reading that sec filing , with Alaska asking Virgin to lower their price has me cringing hard knowing what came next. If we are lucky we (B6/AS) will both merge together soon down the road. If we are super lucky we will be individually gobbled up by the big four.

re: Virgin pilots. I hate to say it but they were always going to get acquired by someone, and unfortunately for them they got acquired by the least desirable partner out of the realistic prospects. Most of the time new crew bases are a small silver lining after a merge, and instead of that they lost their one non west coast base in exchange for couple new bases down the road to what they already had.

Makes me wonder if the Virgin owners did not approach and coordinate with B6 as a false flag to use against Alaska.

cornbeef007

Good God, I hope not! Probation has a purpose, hopefully that portion of the process works as intended.

sailingfun

Delta was not considering a VX purchase. It would not have offered them anything they needed. SEA is their NW hub plus LAX to the south. They would have ended up dropping most of the SFO flights. There was simply nothing of value that matched the Delta system.

Packrat

Shy,

I can understand why you wanted B6 being a NY guy. Hopefully you can get on somewhere that has a JFK, LGA or EWR base. Commuting west will be a PIA.

AS had a couple PA/NJ commuters. They were stuck in the jump out of EWR more often than not. AS isn't commuter friendly when it comes to building pairings/lines. That's evidence enough they give hiring preference to PNW/AK residents.

Pogey Bait

Dude I have moved on and I suggest you do the same. You are making Delta Air Lines look not so favorable. Quit being an asshat.

CrispyBacon

Wow you are full of yourself aren't you now. No. You are wrong.
Some regional pilots may have made mistakes, for sure they learned from them too, but few made mistakes worthy of being black-listed.

Most regional pilots that cant get out, it's because they got too comfortable: Stuck in the regional rut.

FO's: They waited to upgrade until they could hold their base. They didnt avoid or bypass upgrade, they simply tried to maintain their QOL thinking surely they could upgrade in home base soon, and not get seat locked on a TERRIBLE commute.

CA's and FO's: They probably didnt keep their apps current during the 15 years the majors werent hiring either, because other things in life were more important then updating their flight times every 2 weeks to a company that wasnt hiring. They both figured that the legacies would hire preferentially based on experience, so both got trapped by thinking they didnt need to waste time until the big boys actually started hiring again.

Now to the paper pushers in the hiring departments, they didnt show enough motivation to get hired right away. That is like most of it right there. They are only guilty of not being super ambitious, or got comfortably complacent.

The fact you got hired by a major makes it all the more pathetic. Your a disgrace.

Chuckie

Just to add a counterpoint to this douchenozzle's posts, just so y'all don't think that all "fighter guys" who "escaped" from AS/VX share the same pathetic opinions as Work4life.

I flew at VX for two years, and loved it. I liked the people I flew with, and they (with a few exceptions) were very skilled and competent pilots. Nothing is farther from the truth to say that these guys are "undesirable" or unworthy. I've been humbled plenty of times in the cockpit by these guys that Work4life thinks are scraping the bottom of the pilot gene pool.

In a parallel universe, VX would not have been bought by AS and I'd still be there. And I'd still be happy, too. It was a great place to work. I made it clear in my interview that I wasn't looking at VX as a stepping stone, and that was the truth. But now that AS makes everyone wear a white shirt and a tie, I'm glad I made the jump (that was a joke). After the contentious last summer with contract negotiations and arbitration, I updated my apps last fall and got picked up by a legacy. I'm happy where I am now, and yes my "career" is probably going to be much better where I am. At the very least, I can drive to work now where I was commuting in to SFO before. That alone was worth the jump. But I still miss where I was and the people I worked with.

But I hold no delusions of self-grandeur that Work4life has that makes me any better than the pilots I left at VX/AS for greener pastures. I'm just fortunate to have been given the opportunity to move on. Others may choose not to due to their own reasons, and yes some may not be able to go somewhere else because of a skeleton or two in their closets. We are all dealt a different hand at the poker game of life.....some are able to play crappy cards well, others not so much, and some get lucky and don't have to do much except collect the chips at the end. I had the military/fighter/instructor/SEFE/leadership boxes to check off, and perhaps that was the tipping point for me. I was fortunate. None of that qualifies me to stomp on the d**ks of anyone I put in my rear view mirror.

I never really got to know the folks on the AS side of the house, but I'm sure you guys are (for the most part) great folks who share the same concerns as the VX guys over what kind of crap sandwich the company is going to serve up on a dish for you next. Best of luck to all of you!