Except for Connie Kalitta.....most of these ACMI second tier management teams are rookies at best. Connie was vested in his company and knew what it took to succeed. These other scumbags could learn a few lessons from the master!

Truly epic stories. Fantastic! :D:D:D

Fun filled 737 facts :
-When deadheading on company aircraft you will sit on a Flight Attendent jumpseat potentially all the way out to the west coast (bring a jacket a sleeping bag and camping pad).
-Crew meals are only on Denver and Salt Lake City segments.
-There are no coffee makers or drinks other then water (hot in the summer and cold in the winter).
-Deadhead pay is 50% of the scheDuled block time so if you sit on the ramp for an hour you won't be paid for any of it.

There are wys to change that

You sound just like one of those Prima Donnas that Birdbrain was talking about.

You didn't get the memo? Simply become a Senior Check Airman on the 777 and life at Suddern suddenly doesn't suck so much.

Not being a Prima Donna. Simply doing what I set out to do, inform potential new hires what they are getting into.

I see no reason for anybody to accept a 737 job at Southern unless someone is simply desperate for ANY flying job. There are much better jobs out there. You won't build many jet hours if that is your goal, you'll work the night sort which makes you old & grumpy, jumpseating to CVG sucks, you'll spend your own money on a crash pad or other lodging, upgrades have stalled so there's limited opportunity to upgrade and then move on to greener pastures, etc, etc.

I voted against the 737 LOA due to no home basing. With home basing the 737 program would've been tolerable. Without.....well I think that has been beaten like a dead horse on here.

And yes....if you are a prima donna, whined, need your hand held, can't fly....then don't apply to any ACMI carrier.

Welp, um... yeah. After all these years, all I can say is, crap. I got nuthin. Birdstrikes and I are in complete agreement on this one.

Hot damn. What's next???

FYI - Envoy is hiring.....

Didn't you get the memo whereby all pilots have a Constitutional Right to complain about anything? This includes, but is not limited to late hotel vans, lousy layover hotels, lousy (or lack of) crew meals, undue delay at getting trip trade, trip drop, or open flying bid approved, schedule reassignment, how latest CBA (~70-85% yes votes) sucks, etc, etc, etc.

The latest round of shoot the messenger posts by seasoned ACMI pilots reminds me of an old traveling salesman stuck in the middle of nowhere story. Urban traveling salesman's car breaks down in the middle of nowhere. Farmer offers to let him stay the night in his house. Of course, house has no air conditioning, and is immediately downwind of animal barn. Salesman says "geez, this place smells like s#^t !" Farmer : "Huh, I don't know what you're talking about."

Same here. That really made me want to grab some popcorn. My favorite part of the story was when someone told the dispatcher to get the "bleeeeep pilots in the bleeeeeep air"

glhmoore, your story is an epic read. Well written. Funny. I enjoyed it from beginning to end.

Thanks for sharing and best of luck!!!

Ill try and be a little more succinct in my storytelling for no other reason than I simply can't compete with that epic posed to us earlier in this tread. Hats off. That truly exemplifies what ACMI can rain down upon you... on your FIRST trip. Ha!!

In only three months on the line at Suddern on the ad hoc 747 flying, I somehow amassed more stories than I could have imagined. A lot of it was exactly what I expected and sort of hoped for... much of it was not. (Especially the near immediate furlough part, but I digress...).

I'll flip the cards here and describe my very last trip at Suddern. I'm going to skip passed many small nightmares in the beginning of the 20 day sequence for brevity (Captain and I in different hotels, not able to locate one another, and me being blamed by the captain for being in a different hotel.... the one scheduling booked me a room in. Yeah, my fault. Right.) The trip started becoming much more interesting upon our arrival in Guam.Here, we had the wonderful fortune of staying at a Marriott resort right on the beach (no longer a Marriott). It was STUNNING. We had a scheduled 36 hour layover, and I fully took advantage of it. There was amazing snorkeling right in front of the hotel, cool bars, very attractive women.... it was why I signed up. Then, by the grace of the ACMI gods, red button of death... Our aircraft was AOG in Japan. We were "stuck" here in Guam for another six days. Now, keep in mind that this was a Marriott, and we all had Marriott Platinum status. Free food. Free booze. Beach paradise. One week. One of the best layovers I've ever had. I'd go into further detail, but some things are better left unsaid (especially on a fairly public forum!).

We finally left Guam (Andersen AFB) early in the morning on a Sunday and headed for Hickam AFB in Honolulu for a short tech stop, and were then to continue to Travis AFB in Northern CA. It was a long scheduled day, something like 18 hours. And for everything the ACMI gods give you, they are sure to restore balance with something else. We broke the airplane in Hickam, but not bad enough to go AOG (so close!). This netted us a four hour delay in which we did not leave the aircraft. We then jetted off to Travis, offloaded our cargo, and were thoroughly exhausted and looking forward to getting off the plane.... No. Just kidding. We were told there was no room to park the aircraft that night. We would have to repo the aircraft to McClellan AFB in Sacramento, a short 36 miles away. But oh, the airfield is shut down for the next three hours. And you can't leave the plane. You may depart at 3am. Ugh. Fine. We waited out the delay, completely fatigued, and now on our 26th hour of continuous duty and not having step foot off the airplane we took off for our short hop to McClellan. We landed and officially clocked 27.1 hours of duty.

Now we head off to our hotel for the evening and you know exactly where this is going. Because we landed in McClellan and not Travis, our limo ride was now 40 minutes, and not 15. Ugh. We roll into the hotel at about 4:30am.
"Hi, Southern Air. We have four pilots."
"Hi, yes. I see your reservation. You are booked for yesterday. We have no rooms for you. You never showed up."
"There is nothing?"
"No, there is a big convention. There aren't rooms anywhere."
.....
We spent the next 30 minutes calling every hotel in the Sacramento area looking for rooms. We had been more or less awake for about 30 hours. Finally, we found rooms, smack in the middle of the city. Embassy Suites. $400/room. Done. Company credit card, engage.

The next day I wake up completely drained, but happy to have slept some. I pop open the laptop. Red button. Call scheduling.
"What's up?"
"We need you in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan as soon as possible!! We are booking your flight now. Get to the airport!"
"......I'm really tired. Okay."

Sacramento - Los Angeles - Istanbul - Bishkek. Middle. Economy. (Except for IST - FRU where I somehow ended in business).

Upon arrival in Bishkek I meet the captain in the hotel lobby.
"Did you hear?"
"What?"
"Oh, we don't have plane. It's AOG somewhere. I think we are going to be here a while."
"Ha. Ha. Ha."

Seven days later after giving my liver a thorough workout and exploring Bishkek and the surrounding mountains I am commercial deadheaded from Bishkek - Moscow - JFK - home and promptly told "You're furloughed. We don't need you."

Yeah, but did you get a landing?

Yes! Landed my last flight actually. At Travis.
That said, I was furloughed with 8 total landings. Lol.

As entertaining as these posts are, and they are entertaining. That was old Southern, doesn't apply anymore. These are not the reasons to pass on the 737 FO job.

The 737 contract is one of the worst in the industry.

. Jumpseating to CVG, no protection if you miss a flight, crashpad or hotel on your own dime, night hub turns, horrible pay.

Those hoping for a quick upgrade. Forget it. Any upgrades will come from senior 777 FOs trying to re-hack there PIC so they can move on to UPS/FedEx or one of the passenger carriers.

If your using Southern as a way to get into Atlas, apply at Atlas. They will hire you and they have a contract that is way better than Southern's. Heck, they just took our entire pool.

Why? This is speculation mind you... Southern can't grow anymore. We are stuck at 5/5 airplanes until we get a new contract. Southern can't run anymore 777 classes because the 737 equipment lock has passed. New 777 FOs would come from the 737 side instead of off the street depleting the 737 crewing. Hence the 737 FO job postings.

Once we get a new contract, different story.

When will we get a new contract? I have no idea

This makes 2 of my nominees for "best first post on APC" (flyphisher and ghlmoore) that posted in this thread. To everyone else, please keep those trip anecdotes coming. APC just might have to make a special section for "ACMI Trip Reports."

Couldn't not have said it better!

These posts are funny! We have similar problems at 5Y except we all have company credit cards and a (crappy) CBA with provisions in it to back us up. And now we also have 1500 angry pilots. The consistent never end steam of mistakes end up getting VERY expensive here.

I don't see how anyone would even consider applying at southern, seeing as the regionals are offering $10,000+ a year more with better schedules and future options (with the same hiring requirements). Until southern gets a better contract.

I think they believe that they positioning themselves for a post contract airline ignoring the possibility of a strike or company collapse.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained I guess.

I just turned down an invitation to interview today.
HR lady was very nice and understanding. I hope they get a decent contract soon..

You made the right choice, best of luck getting a job at a good carrier.

Thanks man and good luck to you guys!

An example of rational, thoughtful and wise judgement. Best of luck to you! In this market it won't take long.

I get it, but gambling on a Atlas is an entirely different animal than Southern 737. I still would go to a regional with a big bonus and a short upgrade before rolling the dice on that losing hand.

Merger Delay
 

Latest word about merging Atlas and Southern is that the SOC (single operating certificate) is being delayed until January 1st 2019 due to contract negotiations!

I can testify:All those horror stories are true.
After working for Evergreen, Tower Air and Tradewinds Airlines I got tons of similar stories.
Too lazy to write the long ones, here is shortie:

Home in Dallas, bachelor, on days off, phone rings:Crew Schedule:
How would you like to dead-head to Bombay, then pick up a trip to Europe, then Dead-Head home?
Sure, no problem, I can do that. (Had no other plans)
Got business class ticket on Pan Am or Lufthansa all the way to Bombay, nice ride, good food.
At the Juhu Beach hotel in Bombay I call CS and tell ‘em I am in Bombay. He ask what are you doing there...? Told him Joe sent me the day before. Uh, ok..stay there, don’t go anywhere.
So I sit around the pool and do gin and tonics for 3 Days, sample good good and talk to pretty girls, then the phone rings and and CS said “You can go home now”
They booked me a C class ticket back to DFW and 20 hours later I was home. No idea what that was all about but picked up a bunch of frequent flyer miles..:cool:

What a horror story. That should keep all the RJ FOs away.

This is fake news. Plenty of negative news including the new lawsuit, not necessary to make things up.

Sorry, Dude. This is not fake news. I wish it were.

According to the union email dated 9/25/17, yesterday, it's still on for 01/18. That also jives with the last CP email, not sure where you're getting your info, I'm on days off so maybe you're more up to date than I am.