G4 vs F9
08-22-2019, 02:15 PM
#1
New Hire
Thread Starter
Joined APC: Aug 2019
Posts: 8
G4 vs F9
Howdy,
Posting this to ask a few questions from the G4 guys really since I don’t personally know any like I do at F9.
I have offers from both companies, and I have a class date sooner with G4 than F9. I could beat a dead horse with base questions and whatnot, but that’s not what I’m particularly interested in.
Are you guys happy at G4?
How is the maintenance? Serious question. I don’t know if the media portrayal was accurate or not but It’d be nice to know how the guys (girls) flying the line feel.
Is safety culture a thing at G4? (Fatigue callouts, Chief Pilot backing you up, etc)
How is the management/pilot relationship?
Do junior line holders get more than minimum days off?
Would you suggest coming here, or would you do something else? Mind you I am a relatively inexperienced pilot and only can choose LCC or stay at my current regional.
Lastly, would you expect growth significant enough for a new hire to see the left seat if they chose to within the next 5 years? (Obviously very opinion based).
My goal is to either be at a place I can happily spend a career at or at least build a good enough resume to be competitive in the event it doesn’t work out. I am moving to base regardless of the company.
Thanks in advance for any insight.
Posting this to ask a few questions from the G4 guys really since I don’t personally know any like I do at F9.
I have offers from both companies, and I have a class date sooner with G4 than F9. I could beat a dead horse with base questions and whatnot, but that’s not what I’m particularly interested in.
Are you guys happy at G4?
How is the maintenance? Serious question. I don’t know if the media portrayal was accurate or not but It’d be nice to know how the guys (girls) flying the line feel.
Is safety culture a thing at G4? (Fatigue callouts, Chief Pilot backing you up, etc)
How is the management/pilot relationship?
Do junior line holders get more than minimum days off?
Would you suggest coming here, or would you do something else? Mind you I am a relatively inexperienced pilot and only can choose LCC or stay at my current regional.
Lastly, would you expect growth significant enough for a new hire to see the left seat if they chose to within the next 5 years? (Obviously very opinion based).
My goal is to either be at a place I can happily spend a career at or at least build a good enough resume to be competitive in the event it doesn’t work out. I am moving to base regardless of the company.
Thanks in advance for any insight.
08-22-2019, 02:27 PM
#2
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jun 2018
Posts: 199
Posting this to ask a few questions from the G4 guys really since I don’t personally know any like I do at F9.
I have offers from both companies, and I have a class date sooner with G4 than F9. I could beat a dead horse with base questions and whatnot, but that’s not what I’m particularly interested in.
Are you guys happy at G4?
Majority are happy. No place is perfect, you’ll have issues wherever you go.
How is the maintenance? Serious question.
Serious answer...we all have families and people that we care about. Do you honestly think we would come to work every day if we didn’t feel the airplanes were safe??
Is safety culture a thing at G4? (Fatigue callouts, Chief Pilot backing you up, etc)
Never been pressured to fly anything I didn’t feel fit to do.
How is the management/pilot relationship?
Like most places, some good and some bad. Lots of grievances going on right now with contract violations. That’s the big thing preventing a good relationship.
Do junior line holders get more than minimum days off?
Rarely, but you could during slow months. All reserve lines are built to min days off.
Would you suggest coming here, or would you do something else?
If you want to be home most nights, by all means come here. If you don’t care about that go to F9. You’ll make more money there and likely face a similar career progression path.
Lastly, would you expect growth significant enough for a new hire to see the left seat if they chose to within the next 5 years? (Obviously very opinion based).
Within 5 years is realistic as long as you’re willing to go to any base.
I have offers from both companies, and I have a class date sooner with G4 than F9. I could beat a dead horse with base questions and whatnot, but that’s not what I’m particularly interested in.
Are you guys happy at G4?
Majority are happy. No place is perfect, you’ll have issues wherever you go.
How is the maintenance? Serious question.
Serious answer...we all have families and people that we care about. Do you honestly think we would come to work every day if we didn’t feel the airplanes were safe??
Is safety culture a thing at G4? (Fatigue callouts, Chief Pilot backing you up, etc)
Never been pressured to fly anything I didn’t feel fit to do.
How is the management/pilot relationship?
Like most places, some good and some bad. Lots of grievances going on right now with contract violations. That’s the big thing preventing a good relationship.
Do junior line holders get more than minimum days off?
Rarely, but you could during slow months. All reserve lines are built to min days off.
Would you suggest coming here, or would you do something else?
If you want to be home most nights, by all means come here. If you don’t care about that go to F9. You’ll make more money there and likely face a similar career progression path.
Lastly, would you expect growth significant enough for a new hire to see the left seat if they chose to within the next 5 years? (Obviously very opinion based).
Within 5 years is realistic as long as you’re willing to go to any base.
08-22-2019, 06:12 PM
#3
New Hire
Joined APC: Aug 2019
Posts: 3
Originally Posted by Outnback
Howdy,
Posting this to ask a few questions from the G4 guys really since I don’t personally know any like I do at F9.
I have offers from both companies, and I have a class date sooner with G4 than F9. I could beat a dead horse with base questions and whatnot, but that’s not what I’m particularly interested in.
Are you guys happy at G4?
How is the maintenance? Serious question. I don’t know if the media portrayal was accurate or not but It’d be nice to know how the guys (girls) flying the line feel.
Is safety culture a thing at G4? (Fatigue callouts, Chief Pilot backing you up, etc)
How is the management/pilot relationship?
Do junior line holders get more than minimum days off?
Would you suggest coming here, or would you do something else? Mind you I am a relatively inexperienced pilot and only can choose LCC or stay at my current regional.
Lastly, would you expect growth significant enough for a new hire to see the left seat if they chose to within the next 5 years? (Obviously very opinion based).
My goal is to either be at a place I can happily spend a career at or at least build a good enough resume to be competitive in the event it doesn’t work out. I am moving to base regardless of the company.
Thanks in advance for any insight.
Posting this to ask a few questions from the G4 guys really since I don’t personally know any like I do at F9.
I have offers from both companies, and I have a class date sooner with G4 than F9. I could beat a dead horse with base questions and whatnot, but that’s not what I’m particularly interested in.
Are you guys happy at G4?
How is the maintenance? Serious question. I don’t know if the media portrayal was accurate or not but It’d be nice to know how the guys (girls) flying the line feel.
Is safety culture a thing at G4? (Fatigue callouts, Chief Pilot backing you up, etc)
How is the management/pilot relationship?
Do junior line holders get more than minimum days off?
Would you suggest coming here, or would you do something else? Mind you I am a relatively inexperienced pilot and only can choose LCC or stay at my current regional.
Lastly, would you expect growth significant enough for a new hire to see the left seat if they chose to within the next 5 years? (Obviously very opinion based).
My goal is to either be at a place I can happily spend a career at or at least build a good enough resume to be competitive in the event it doesn’t work out. I am moving to base regardless of the company.
Thanks in advance for any insight.
Well based on your name being “Outnback” might be a Freudian Slip? Not sure how many F9 has of those compared to G4. I interviewed in SFB and there was a F9 guy interviewing if that tells you anything? Just saying... I assume maybe incorrectly you interviewed and met with both interview teams on their property face to face? What one felt right... think Matthew mcconaughey. Not sure I would make a career changing decision by asking the same ten guys that post the same negative or positive about a company which you should pick. Grow up son..Didn’t you do research and ask questions at both interviews? Best of luck... paralysis by analysis so maybe neither is the best choice..
08-23-2019, 03:22 AM
#4
New Hire
Thread Starter
Joined APC: Aug 2019
Posts: 8
Originally Posted by SuperSteveEMB
Well based on your name being “Outnback” might be a Freudian Slip? Not sure how many F9 has of those compared to G4. I interviewed in SFB and there was a F9 guy interviewing if that tells you anything? Just saying... I assume maybe incorrectly you interviewed and met with both interview teams on their property face to face? What one felt right... think Matthew mcconaughey. Not sure I would make a career changing decision by asking the same ten guys that post the same negative or positive about a company which you should pick. Grow up son..Didn’t you do research and ask questions at both interviews? Best of luck... paralysis by analysis so maybe neither is the best choice..
I researched on my own and asked questions to the managers/hr. I don’t know anyone who flies the line at g4 which is why I’m asking here what they think. After all, I feel like I’d be short-changing myself if I didn’t use all my available resources to get a better picture of somewhere I’d be starting a long career at.
Hope the guys on the line are a little nicer than you.
On a different note, thank you . I really appreciate that insight!
08-23-2019, 07:24 AM
#5
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Sep 2006
Posts: 926
You’ll have to forgive us for being a little suspicious of a question from a freshly-created account. This is the sort of tactic that our labor relations department and some members of our management would employ.
Working at G4 is good, but here’s why: Our out and back/home every night business model greatly limits the manner in which the company can take advantage of us. If this were a regular multi-day trip sort of airline and management applied their same “contract doesn’t matter” philosophy to that situation, attrition here would be the highest in the industry. Anyone who currently works for G4 and doubts this only has to look at reserve pilot treatment, pay protection issues, TDY/VBD rental cars, TDY/VBD DH days and the childish reaction to the loss of that arbitration, no-shows being issued for nearly anything, instructor treatment, systematic payroll “glitches,” pay screwups, crew scheduling treatment, moving of reserve shifts to prevent self-release, rental car use for DHs, using DHs to keep people on duty overnight in lieu of a hotel, the fight over pay on DH days for training, VFN shenanigans...the list goes on.
Granted, there are individual situations that can be chalked up to incompetence, but these diabolical plans weren’t concocted by some hapless support department drone who was working in retail a few months ago.....they’re marching orders from our labor relations people. They want to change the status quo, create as many issues as possible in order to give themselves an advantage when it comes time for contract negotiations, bleed union resources by forcing even the most ridiculous positions to arbitration, and to mitigate the costs of the current contract. Yeah, the company loses a lot of these arbitrations, but it still costs the Union time and money dealing with an otherwise black-and-white issue when they could have been working on more significant issues.
It pains me to see the company acting in such an obtuse manner. If what they’ve been doing presently is any indication, our next contract negotiations are going to be very hard and long fought.
I’ve just reviewed F9’s pay scale. In my current position, I’d be making 10% more pay, have greatly increased retirement benefits and, without even looking at the work conditions and contract language, I can tell that both are most assuredly better....because G4’s are terrible. I know you didn’t ask about JetBlue, but the bottom of their captain payscale more than the top of G4’s.
The log and short of it: The company got a windfall contract because they were able to win over the 6-year plus pilots with good pay rates for them and now they’re taking advantage of poor language to set us up for a protracted and difficult contract fight. Right now, this company is a good place to work despite the company’s best efforts, not because of them. The out and back business model is the only saving grace.
I’m not telling to you avoid G4, but this is an important consideration.
Working at G4 is good, but here’s why: Our out and back/home every night business model greatly limits the manner in which the company can take advantage of us. If this were a regular multi-day trip sort of airline and management applied their same “contract doesn’t matter” philosophy to that situation, attrition here would be the highest in the industry. Anyone who currently works for G4 and doubts this only has to look at reserve pilot treatment, pay protection issues, TDY/VBD rental cars, TDY/VBD DH days and the childish reaction to the loss of that arbitration, no-shows being issued for nearly anything, instructor treatment, systematic payroll “glitches,” pay screwups, crew scheduling treatment, moving of reserve shifts to prevent self-release, rental car use for DHs, using DHs to keep people on duty overnight in lieu of a hotel, the fight over pay on DH days for training, VFN shenanigans...the list goes on.
Granted, there are individual situations that can be chalked up to incompetence, but these diabolical plans weren’t concocted by some hapless support department drone who was working in retail a few months ago.....they’re marching orders from our labor relations people. They want to change the status quo, create as many issues as possible in order to give themselves an advantage when it comes time for contract negotiations, bleed union resources by forcing even the most ridiculous positions to arbitration, and to mitigate the costs of the current contract. Yeah, the company loses a lot of these arbitrations, but it still costs the Union time and money dealing with an otherwise black-and-white issue when they could have been working on more significant issues.
It pains me to see the company acting in such an obtuse manner. If what they’ve been doing presently is any indication, our next contract negotiations are going to be very hard and long fought.
I’ve just reviewed F9’s pay scale. In my current position, I’d be making 10% more pay, have greatly increased retirement benefits and, without even looking at the work conditions and contract language, I can tell that both are most assuredly better....because G4’s are terrible. I know you didn’t ask about JetBlue, but the bottom of their captain payscale more than the top of G4’s.
The log and short of it: The company got a windfall contract because they were able to win over the 6-year plus pilots with good pay rates for them and now they’re taking advantage of poor language to set us up for a protracted and difficult contract fight. Right now, this company is a good place to work despite the company’s best efforts, not because of them. The out and back business model is the only saving grace.
I’m not telling to you avoid G4, but this is an important consideration.
08-23-2019, 08:37 AM
#6
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jan 2019
Posts: 310
Originally Posted by sqwkvfr
You’ll have to forgive us for being a little suspicious of a question from a freshly-created account. This is the sort of tactic that our labor relations department and some members of our management would employ.
To the OP you’ve got offers from two companies that are both better than your regional in terms of pay and QOL. I’ll repeat what I’ve heard repeatedly in the industry-Take the first class date and decide from there.
I was taking to a G4 guy the other day. He seemed pretty happy and being home based flying out and backs sounded pretty great.
08-23-2019, 08:39 AM
#7
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jun 2009
Position: First Officer
Posts: 432
Originally Posted by sqwkvfr
You’ll have to forgive us for being a little suspicious of a question from a freshly-created account. This is the sort of tactic that our labor relations department and some members of our management would employ.
Working at G4 is good, but here’s why: Our out and back/home every night business model greatly limits the manner in which the company can take advantage of us. If this were a regular multi-day trip sort of airline and management applied their same “contract doesn’t matter” philosophy to that situation, attrition here would be the highest in the industry. Anyone who currently works for G4 and doubts this only has to look at reserve pilot treatment, pay protection issues, TDY/VBD rental cars, TDY/VBD DH days and the childish reaction to the loss of that arbitration, no-shows being issued for nearly anything, instructor treatment, systematic payroll “glitches,” pay screwups, crew scheduling treatment, moving of reserve shifts to prevent self-release, rental car use for DHs, using DHs to keep people on duty overnight in lieu of a hotel, the fight over pay on DH days for training, VFN shenanigans...the list goes on.
Granted, there are individual situations that can be chalked up to incompetence, but these diabolical plans weren’t concocted by some hapless support department drone who was working in retail a few months ago.....they’re marching orders from our labor relations people. They want to change the status quo, create as many issues as possible in order to give themselves an advantage when it comes time for contract negotiations, bleed union resources by forcing even the most ridiculous positions to arbitration, and to mitigate the costs of the current contract. Yeah, the company loses a lot of these arbitrations, but it still costs the Union time and money dealing with an otherwise black-and-white issue when they could have been working on more significant issues.
It pains me to see the company acting in such an obtuse manner. If what they’ve been doing presently is any indication, our next contract negotiations are going to be very hard and long fought.
I’ve just reviewed F9’s pay scale. In my current position, I’d be making 10% more pay, have greatly increased retirement benefits and, without even looking at the work conditions and contract language, I can tell that both are most assuredly better....because G4’s are terrible. I know you didn’t ask about JetBlue, but the bottom of their captain payscale more than the top of G4’s.
The log and short of it: The company got a windfall contract because they were able to win over the 6-year plus pilots with good pay rates for them and now they’re taking advantage of poor language to set us up for a protracted and difficult contract fight. Right now, this company is a good place to work despite the company’s best efforts, not because of them. The out and back business model is the only saving grace.
I’m not telling to you avoid G4, but this is an important consideration.
Working at G4 is good, but here’s why: Our out and back/home every night business model greatly limits the manner in which the company can take advantage of us. If this were a regular multi-day trip sort of airline and management applied their same “contract doesn’t matter” philosophy to that situation, attrition here would be the highest in the industry. Anyone who currently works for G4 and doubts this only has to look at reserve pilot treatment, pay protection issues, TDY/VBD rental cars, TDY/VBD DH days and the childish reaction to the loss of that arbitration, no-shows being issued for nearly anything, instructor treatment, systematic payroll “glitches,” pay screwups, crew scheduling treatment, moving of reserve shifts to prevent self-release, rental car use for DHs, using DHs to keep people on duty overnight in lieu of a hotel, the fight over pay on DH days for training, VFN shenanigans...the list goes on.
Granted, there are individual situations that can be chalked up to incompetence, but these diabolical plans weren’t concocted by some hapless support department drone who was working in retail a few months ago.....they’re marching orders from our labor relations people. They want to change the status quo, create as many issues as possible in order to give themselves an advantage when it comes time for contract negotiations, bleed union resources by forcing even the most ridiculous positions to arbitration, and to mitigate the costs of the current contract. Yeah, the company loses a lot of these arbitrations, but it still costs the Union time and money dealing with an otherwise black-and-white issue when they could have been working on more significant issues.
It pains me to see the company acting in such an obtuse manner. If what they’ve been doing presently is any indication, our next contract negotiations are going to be very hard and long fought.
I’ve just reviewed F9’s pay scale. In my current position, I’d be making 10% more pay, have greatly increased retirement benefits and, without even looking at the work conditions and contract language, I can tell that both are most assuredly better....because G4’s are terrible. I know you didn’t ask about JetBlue, but the bottom of their captain payscale more than the top of G4’s.
The log and short of it: The company got a windfall contract because they were able to win over the 6-year plus pilots with good pay rates for them and now they’re taking advantage of poor language to set us up for a protracted and difficult contract fight. Right now, this company is a good place to work despite the company’s best efforts, not because of them. The out and back business model is the only saving grace.
I’m not telling to you avoid G4, but this is an important consideration.
That is very well said.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
08-23-2019, 11:20 AM
#9
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Feb 2013
Posts: 2,940
I've been here 4 years and I am considered to be a senior FO in one of our larger bases, ie top 20%. In my opinion, the larger base probably has better schedules possible. In fact, I think each base is almost like its own mini airline. Once you are in your desired base, general seniority becomes less important, its more about base seniority.
I typically bid low hours. Usually I drop a day or two as well to get down to about 60-65 hours per month (about 10-12 days per month of work). In general I work Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday with Thurs-Sun off, sometimes no Tuesdays. I've been doing this each month for almost 2 years. I could upgrade right now but will wait so I am not at the bottom of the captain list. Being junior here can be painful with how the company can move you around, something we call TDY. If you are not familiar with allegiant TDY its a whole other topic.
I'm not here for the money, we don't make what the legacy airlines make. The real benefit to working here is the out and back nature of our schedules as I'm sure you know. I wouldn't trade it for more money, in fact I don't know how you put a price on being home every night in the airlines. I'm too spoiled, if allegiant ever went out of business or merged and the out and back structure went away, I would just call it a career and change my focus more towards my other activities. Having said that, working here does allow you to cast your net into other waters to derive other income. We have all kinds of pilots here doing all sorts of stuff outside of flying.
The last thing I will say is the maintenance is now on par with what most pilots I think would say is good or acceptable maintenance. I say this comparing current allegiant maintenance with working at two previous regional airlines. When I come to work, 99% of the time the airplane gets out on time. In my base I would estimate 60% of the time there is no deferral on the airplane. When there is a deferral its usually just one item. Occasionally you will see an airplane with 2 or 3 deferrals. But it wasn't always like this. There was a time when whatever bad press the company received from maintenance problems was very much deserved in my opinion. They recognized they had to change the way they were doing things because something bad was going to happen and they did. Also, eliminating the MD80 solved alot of maintenance headaches as well. With the MD80, although I've never flown it, I imagine much of the maintenance problems weren't even discovered until you got in the air. With the Airbus, you know when you have a problem many times before you even push back with its more advanced monitoring.
I typically bid low hours. Usually I drop a day or two as well to get down to about 60-65 hours per month (about 10-12 days per month of work). In general I work Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday with Thurs-Sun off, sometimes no Tuesdays. I've been doing this each month for almost 2 years. I could upgrade right now but will wait so I am not at the bottom of the captain list. Being junior here can be painful with how the company can move you around, something we call TDY. If you are not familiar with allegiant TDY its a whole other topic.
I'm not here for the money, we don't make what the legacy airlines make. The real benefit to working here is the out and back nature of our schedules as I'm sure you know. I wouldn't trade it for more money, in fact I don't know how you put a price on being home every night in the airlines. I'm too spoiled, if allegiant ever went out of business or merged and the out and back structure went away, I would just call it a career and change my focus more towards my other activities. Having said that, working here does allow you to cast your net into other waters to derive other income. We have all kinds of pilots here doing all sorts of stuff outside of flying.
The last thing I will say is the maintenance is now on par with what most pilots I think would say is good or acceptable maintenance. I say this comparing current allegiant maintenance with working at two previous regional airlines. When I come to work, 99% of the time the airplane gets out on time. In my base I would estimate 60% of the time there is no deferral on the airplane. When there is a deferral its usually just one item. Occasionally you will see an airplane with 2 or 3 deferrals. But it wasn't always like this. There was a time when whatever bad press the company received from maintenance problems was very much deserved in my opinion. They recognized they had to change the way they were doing things because something bad was going to happen and they did. Also, eliminating the MD80 solved alot of maintenance headaches as well. With the MD80, although I've never flown it, I imagine much of the maintenance problems weren't even discovered until you got in the air. With the Airbus, you know when you have a problem many times before you even push back with its more advanced monitoring.
08-23-2019, 12:33 PM
#10
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Feb 2012
Posts: 549
Until a few months ago, a 3 year CA at Allegiant made more than top payscale at Frontier. Pay rates come and go.
Working at Allegiant is not really comparable to any other airline job. Out and back, very few layovers, very few big airports... which means very few delays, ground stops, jumpseaters, etc. On the other hand you will likely never have any cool layovers, and it's not glamorous work. Just depends what's important to you and if the bases are some place you'd want to live.
Working at Allegiant is not really comparable to any other airline job. Out and back, very few layovers, very few big airports... which means very few delays, ground stops, jumpseaters, etc. On the other hand you will likely never have any cool layovers, and it's not glamorous work. Just depends what's important to you and if the bases are some place you'd want to live.
