G4 FO here. First time posting. Just wanted to chime in and say this place is not nearly as bad as what these full time keyboard commandos are saying. Yes we need a contract. We will get one. I have a couple kids, can't imagine being anywhere else being gone for multiple days in a row. The pay scale gets better after year one. They pay for your hotel during training now, Pure reserve is not that bad if you live in base. It's September, a slow month by Allegiant standards. I haven't flown since Sept 2nd. Quality of life is something that cannot be measured. We are expanding and growing. All of the horror stories of being TDY'd for months at a time are non existent. When you are an initial newnhire you might have to worry about that for a bit, or if you are a new captain. It has its problems. If you come here thinking they don't have issues you will be disappointed. Cue the "that guy must be management" responses.

 

Glad someone is willing to be optimistic. I'm seriously looking at coming there, and it's nice to hear something good about the place.

 

Must be management...

 

I've never worked WITH nicer folks.

And none of us have ever worked FOR such a horrible, greedy, arrogant, hateful, mean spirited, vindictive, management liars before.

Does that help?

 

But you guys have this going for you! Last week Maurice made one aviation writer's top ten list of all time for airline CEOs, and # 5 of 15 for a
"power ranking" of Jeff Smisek's contemporaries (source: Airways News/Vinay Bhaskara):

"the Top 10 airline CEOs of all time might look something like this.

Herb Kelleher
Richard Anderson
Gordon Bethune
Robert Crandall
Doug Parker
Ben Baldanza
Brad Tilden
David Neelman
Juan Trippe
Maury Gallagher
By my (admittedly subjective) count, 5 of the top 10 and 4 of the top 7 airline CEOs of all time are contemporaries of Jeff Smisek, and that absolutely affects how he is perceived. If you put him up against Ron Wolf, Frank Lorenzo, and Carl Icahn, all of a sudden he looks a lot better.

Moreover, even over the course of his tenure at United, he hasn’t necessarily been the worst CEO in the industry. By the same metrics, here are my “power rankings” of airline CEOs who were contemporaries of Smisek in the US industry.

Richard Anderson – Delta
Doug Parker – US Airways/American
Ben Baldanza – Spirit Airlines
Brad Tilden – Alaska
Maury Gallagher – Allegiant
Mark Dunkerley – Hawaiian
Gary Kelly – Southwest
Jeff Smisek – Continental/United
Bill Franke – Frontier
Tom Horton – American
Bob Fomaro – Air Tran
David Cush – Virgin America
Glenn Tilton – United
Bryan Bedford – Frontier
Jeffrey Erickson – PEOPLExpress"

 

'Cause it's all about the upgrade, right? Where do you go from there?

 

I'm not sure if you're trying to be mean spirited or not, but every legacy has guys routinely upgrade into equipment they never flew as an FO. We operate 3 different aircraft. It happens. I bet it is way more common at the legacies. Doesn't Delta operate pretty much every airplane ever made?

 

There are a lot of people optimistic here, but honest about how things could improve and how painful stuff has been...it's a tradeoff and coming here, you need to have your eyes wide open. If a reasonable contract is signed and they improve some of the mx issues, this could be one of the best jobs around. We will never, ever make Delta money...and this isn't a dumping ground of sketchy pilots. Talked to an APD today and he was wicked impressed with the product that had gotten to him by the oral/type. Good stuff (some) is happening...it just doesn't effect lots of the senior guys/gals much...and the rumor mongering is ridiculous.

 

The least experienced guys (in regards to total flight hours) I have run into here are military. Most civilian new hires have between 3 to 30 years experience at one airline or another from what I've seen. We have a great group of pilots here.

 

I'll back up what he's saying. I don't really see much of what these trolls are saying. I like my job. 99.99% of the time I show up to work in the morning, fly out/back and I'm home before my kids get home from school. Our MX guys are good and skilled guys who fix things and I've never had to declare min fuel because dispatch supposedly shorts us. I've had the opposite experience, plenty of good, aware and in the loop dispatchers who take care of us.
Life is good and getting better (contract will happen).

If anyone wants any information on the real life of allegiant pilots then send me a message.