No, no hard feelings at all to those that come. We warn guys that want to come here for their own good. Admittedly, some feel that if the applicants dry up we will get a contract sooner and that may be true, might not be, but the reality is, it really is THAT bad here. To NOT warn applicants of the reality would be unfair. You really need to know what you are getting in to by coming here, especially right now. It may get better, it may get worse, but right now it is so bad it is difficult to fully convey on a forum, only to live it can you really see the day to day issues that wear you down. From other posts, it looks like even our interviewers are warning applicants about the difficulty commuting etc. When it gets to that point, (where you are being warned in an interview when normally thats when they are blowing sunshine and rainbows), you know its bad. Not only is your quality of life going to be poor for some time if not indefinitely, you are going to witness an operation completely out of control in every department, and YOU will be responsible for catching these errors, whether it be dispatch paperwork, errors in the logbook, errors in scheduling, bids, or the chronic errors in pay reports.

 

This is what the majority of people on here were trying to warn everyone about. It's difficult to explain to, and even more difficult to understand, for people who aren't here already, but this sort of thing is exactly what you expect at G4. No one who has been here any amount of time is surprised when things like this happen.

If you want to come to Allegiant, then by all means come. But come with your eyes open and welcome to a life of constant doubt, upheaval and uncertainty, and forget seniority improving your life. Sadly, the day to day realities are MUCH worse than what is conveyed on this message board.

 

None whatsoever. Just friendly advice. Things have just gotten so bad the last two years.

 

I've read the thread, but have yet to fully understand the TDY base concept. Does it mean your base changes month to month? And you have to pay for your own hotel/crashpad/apartment there? Or is it more like a month long "trip" and the company puts you up in a hotel somewhere?
Thanks.

 

Yes it means your base can change month to month. The company would put you in a hotel. The concept isn't all bad, in fact many pilots had brought up the idea a long time ago to deal with the TDY issues we have. If done correctly, read: if the company would work with the union to secure a negotiated set of rules and terms for these assignments, it could be OK, especially for commuters since they wouldnt need a crash pad etc. The problem is that that would cost money, so they won't willingly have such talks with the union until forced, (they will be forced eventually). But for now, its up to them which means more than likely that: the hotels will be marginal without constant fighting, no rental car if there is a shuttle between the hotel and airport and if not, a shared rental car at best, no special scheduling which means 1 off 5 off 1 off type schedules which are not commutable (they'll even through in a PM last day reserve with an AM first day reserve just to make sure you never get home), strange bidding that makes you elect or "volunteer" for these assignments if you want any ability to bid for a specific location or TDY base (they want to coerce you into volunteering so they can say pilots like TDY on investor calls where this practice of TDYs has been brought up as a negative), if you don't "volunteer" and the TDY makes it to your seniority, you will go wherever they want you to go, and that means as far away as possible from where you live to make a point, the point being to volunteer next time. You will get $1.00/hr per diem too. These points make the floating TDY base a horrendous option for us. As I said above though, if they could part with a few bucks, they could make this something many would like to do once in awhile, but as everything here, it has to be cheap and punitive.

 

Most Dec NH's were out of IOE by the end of April. Several Jan NH's were out on line in June. Sim availability was certainly a BIG issue for Dec & Jan classes. Dec crews were first to do 'in-house' Types and that had its growing pains, too, because FAA was at first giving the Types & Orals (really cool fellow, by the way), then observing APD's giving Types...etc. Yes, the LOFT was delayed 'till the curriculum caught up with the crews.

But!! Once into the Sim, hotels and cars were provided...one car per 2-man crew. After the 'normal' 2-month training footprint, Training Pay was substituted for 70-hour min guarantee.

Not sure how the newfangled "TDY Base" will go down as the bid for it closed just today. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out!

 

Really sad, especially when you consider the biggest original draw to G4 was the fact that you were home every night.

That's hilarious considering the sim times scheduled by G4 at PAA MIA routinely were unused due to "no shows."

 

I think that HQ worked really hard with the last few classes of new hires to convince them that there was no training shutdown and things were just backed up because of the government shutdown. It certainly wasn't the training department's shutdown that backed everything up....no, no, it was lack of sims-even though sims booked by G4 went unused during this time.

Everything G4 is doing now-pilot type rides, ADP, multiple types of airplanes at once, waves of large classes/upgrades has been done in the past. There is nothing brand new going on in the training department. The FAA just shut them down and things are now being looked at, and a standard is having to be met.

As for the huge amount of training having to be done, pilot after pilot tried to tell management that G4 was understaffed and the new 117 rules would require many more pilots. Management obviously didn't see it that way, but now I think the reality has dawned on them and as usual it is panic mode all the way.

The training shutdown never happened, and the Union is just a few overly vocal guys and is not supported by most of the pilots. Sure.

 

Selective omission, when g4 management tries to explain why we are so understaffed. Training department shutdown? Whaaaat? I don’t know you’re talking about..I don’t like the fact the faa has to sit in on checks, but unfortunately this place needs a thorough glove treatment.

I remember the question of staffing being asked repeatedly during our “coffee corners”, and base visits. Of course we were just complaining about non-existence PTO approvals and just general crap schedules. As always, blown off. Speaking of “Coffee Corners”, where did all of the “Glasnosts’” go?

 

There are 43 TDY openings for next month. I think that might be a record for one month.