Allegiant info needed
 

I was just offered the job. How are the schedules? How is life for commuters? Do you anticipate the upgrade time to increase or remain the same? how long can I expect to be on reserve? Currently I work for Eagle. I am about 250 numbers from captain but at the rate Eagle upgrades this may take another 12 months.

Hey career... got an interview on the 7th. Any tips or current gouge. PM me if you'd like...

Just fly as much as possible and get the heck out of there. The MD-80 is a good aircraft to cut your teeth on.

Commuting to Allegiant can be tough. I was there from Feb to Sept of this year. I kinda wish I would have stayed. The big thing is if you have to commute make sure you get a good place to stay. I stayed with a college friend and did not mind it at all, I was comfortable. Although the biggest drawback was that I was still only home 1 1/2 -2 days most weeks. I would guess new hires could expect one of the new bases opening in the end of the year.

Reserve can be slow if you are stuck on it for a while. 2 or 3 of the months I was online I only flew 20-25 hours. Great if you live in base but not so hot if you commute and just sit there.

Good Luck!

good info!

Can anyone else answer the rest of the Q's????

I park at TPA and the van drivers are always telling me that they see Allegiant guys commuting out to other bases... even though there's a base in PIE?

Can anybody elaborate on this? I wanted to know if the PIE base is really senior or what since I live there.

Allegiant
 

I worked there for almost two years. It is very very difficult to commute to and from Allegiant because most of your flying is day trips, although that was and is still changing. There is no union or real representation for the pilot group, they have a group called AAPAG that sort of asks the company for pay increases and more benefits and they ususally get something but not a whole lot. The problem is not so pay so much as the company does all kinds of underhanded things like sending you in a plane that is not fixed or has broken equipment that is neccesary for flight. Not to mention they have no problem having you hang around at the airport waiting for whatever dispatches/scheduling/mgt bidding is that day. It also has people in scheduling dispatch etc that still think it is a 3 airplane operation and don't have a clue where most of their pilots and airplanes are or what they are doing. I am sure a few of the AAPAG guys will get on here and tell you how great it is but they are all senior Capts in LAS and drink the kool-aid regulary, be wary of them. It's not great for schedules and they do open a close bases pretty often. When I worked there I thought about moving but it is a risk. LAS is to senior to hold as a Capt and so are Reno and Laghlin. Orlando is also pretty senior for capts, PIE and FLL and Tunica are junior from what I understand. Tunica and SFB-orlando both require 35-55 minute drives to a real airport to commute out of. FLL is difficult for commuting unless you live on the east coast. PIE also requires a drive to TPA to commute. Upgrade for me was almost two years and I really enjoyed my time at Allegiant. However, I don't think I would go there now. Their are regional jobs that are simliar in pay with much better work rules. express jet comes to mind etc. Don't be fooled by the pay rates many of our second and third year capts make 50-75k per year because there are no real work rules to protect you. For example you get block or better on the day not on the leg so it's rare you ever go over block for the day. Also their is no sick time only PTO and scheduling decided wether or not to pay you PTO for it. Otherwise you just lose pay.
Flying their was very scary at times, I had one engine failure and one high speed abort(oil press) and one hyd failure and three air returns in the 1200 hours I flew there. The airplanes are poorly maintained and ignored a lot of the time. I know of two captains who had to take a month off because they were frazzled from flying at Allegiant. Dispatch was so bad that I and many other pilots use flight watch in flight for WX updates, it's almost impossible to get in touch with company in flight most of the time. When I first started there it was better because the operation was much smaller now it seems to be getting worse from what I understand. Like the previous posters said it's ok if you build some MD-80 time and get out ASAP that is what I and many others have done.


Just my 2c

;)

sounds exactly like big sky only with md80s instead of 1900s

What a joke.....

Third year Captain here and made more than 30K over your top end there....

Yea... No sick time here. That's because you can call in sick and you won't get less than guarantee. Oh yea... and scheduling doesn't decide if you're going to get paid PTO.

We're glad you're gone...

Is it better than Colgan?

I wouldn't mind hearing another view point then...Let us know.

Here's a pay comparison I did between Allegiant and some other airlines on a different site. It should give you an idea of what is possible.

Time to look at the bigger picture.
I'll compare Allegiant, United, NWA, Delta, and NetJets over a 10 year period.
-Based on 80 hours/month
-Using the most junior airplane
(83.3 hours/month=1000 hours/year)

Allegiant Air (upgrade currently at 1 year)
FO year
1. $39,360
Captain years
2. $81,600
3. $86,400
4. $92,160
5. $96,960
6. $100,800
7. $102,720
8. $104,640
9. $106,560
10. $108,480

Ten Year Total=$919,680
--------------------------------------------
United Airlines (upgrade currently 10 years)
FO years
1. $30,720
2. $48,000
3. $70,080
4. $74,880
5. $76,800
6. $78,720
7. $80,640
8. $82,560
9. $83,520
Captain years
10. $124,800

Ten Year Total=$750,720
----------------------------------------------
Northwest Airlines (upgrade currently 10 years)
FO years
1. $28,800
2. $54,720
3. $66,240
4. $68,160
5. $70,080
6. $71,040
7. $72,960
8. $74,880
9. $76,800
Captain years
10. $117,120

Ten Year Total=$700,800
------------------------------------------------
Delta Airlines (upgrade currently 8 years)
FO years
1. $47,040
2. $65,280
3. $75,840
4. $77,760
5. $80,640
6. $82,560
7. $84,480
Captain years
8. $128,640
9. $129,600
10. $131,520

Ten Year Total=$903,360
---------------------------------------------
NetJets (new TA, 7on/7off schedule, estimated upgrade at 5 years)

FO years
1. $56,875
2. $58,866
3. $63,738
4. $65,969
Captain years
5. $100,408
6. $103,923
7. $107,560
8. $111,324
9. $115,221
10. $119,254

Ten Year Total=$903,138

Of course everybody's experience will vary. Upgrades are still averaging around the 1 year mark. Two of my friends are in upgrade class right now in their 13th month of employment. One was offered it at 12 months, but got sick and couldn't make that class. It might slow some due to the recession fears, but probably not more than 6-8 months.

The numbers don't lie. Allegiant is the obvious choice for career airline pilots.

I am going to assume you are being sarcastic.

I have an interview at the end of this month and have a couple of questions:

1. What does a typical month look like for a 1st year FO? I know most trips are out & backs. Is it something like 6 on 3 or 4 off and back 6 on?

2. How many pilots are you hiring?

3. More airplanes expected on the property this year?

4. Is it relatively easy as a 1st year FO to fly over guarantee, ie make extra money?

5. How are the medical, vision, dental bennies?

6. Travel benefits?

7. CASS

8. I know there was talk about providing newhires with accomodation. Did that ever come to fruition?

9. How is the training, indoc, systems, flight training?

10. For you guys/gals that flew glass before Allegiant. What was the transition like during training back to steam gauges?

Thanks and wish me luck!

The big question is, who will be around in 10 years? You don't know...:(

Out of all of the airlines, I think one would be foolish to not rank Allegiant in the top two or three most likely to survive in their present form or in an expended version of their present business model.

I'm not so sure. Fuel prices continue to rise and/or stay high, $100/barrel is gonna' be a sustained price soon. The world is running out of oil, and China and India need more of it each day.

In that environment, a company that runs inefficient aircraft (Md-80's are not gas sippers, just ask AA how badly they're hurting now that Boeing and Airbus have postponed the development of a replacement of the 73 and A320 platforms) and low margin travel and charters is not well positioned to weather a continued rise in fuel costs (no premium passengers or expansive network to spread the costs to).

Of course, nobody thought JFK was a good airport to fly out of either in the mid 90's. Now its so popular they want to restrain capacity there. Today's idiot is tomorrow's genius in this industry, it seems. Allegiant could be the next big thing.

I'm fairly new, so I can probably answer some of these questions.
1. Depends where you're based. In SFB I would be about 1/2 way up the FO list and could hold a line. In LAS I am near the bottom and will be on reserve for a while. My reserve line is 5 on 3 off, then 5 on 2 off, then 4 on 3 off, etc.

2. One more class of 10 in February, then no more till later this year.

3. Just got 2, probably won't get more until the end of the year.

4. Depends where you're based and how many classes hired after you. In LAS, I can't fly over guarantee. In SFB, I could.

5. About $90/month for everything. I've had good experience with the medical, but haven't used the others yet.

6&7. We have jumpseat agreements with almost every airline I can think of.
We have non-rev agreements with USAir, SWA, Frontier, Airtran, JetBlue, Spirit, other smaller airlines, and some regionals. Still trying for some of the big guys: AA, UAL, CAL, Delta.

8. Not yet. Just $2000/month training pay. Normal pay starts on IOE.

9&10. Training was okay. Some things could have been more thorough, but the tests weren't too hard and the simulator was okay. The instructors are really friendly; as long as you study, they want you to succeed. You do not need to be able to mentally build the airplane with your eyes closed like at some airlines. My favorite saying from ground school was "a predetermined value"; they don't make you memorize tons of worthless numbers like hydraulic relief valve pressures and fuel nozzle pressures.
Lot of profiles and callouts to learn.
It's not really going back to steam gauges. The majority of our airplanes are mostly glass, but older glass with seperate instruments, only some have all steam gauges. I had flown nothing but steam gauges before, so I can't comment on a retro transition.

Don't know if it's true, but heard they are getting more resume's now due to age 65 and the slowing economy and are interviewing mostly higher time applicants (guess 2007 was an anomaly for airline hiring). You really need to want to work at Allegiant to pass the interview. The interviewers really like specifics and they want to hire career pilots. If you live at one of our bases or have familly there, they seem to like that. If you're considering Allegiant as a stepping stone airline or just to get out of a regional job, they probably won't hire you.