I don't disagree. However your post is the foremost example of our cultural issues.

What you see is management making a decision that parks an airplane.

What I see is the loss of an airplane that is on the top of our payscale, reducing the need for 30 pilots in the worst case, or not having a top-passing vacancy when YOUR seatlock is up.

Hopefully the rumors of the -8 are true, that would open top paying vacancies. Hopefully rumors of the 77 come to fruition, allowing you a higher paying position when your seatlock is up.

You can also spare the whole "we don't need unprofitable planes" echo as well. Anyone who's been here and paid attention to the boss will know he doesn't operate unprofitable machines.

What is worrisome is that in this market, so much capacity has already been reduced & eliminated, why are we parking an airplane with no announced replacement?

Next time you go to work, ask one of the folks on your right, the guy that lost his 250k/yr job at ASTAR or ABX, or the cat on his 5th airline and now is on the bottom of our list what parking a pos bcf means to them. To them it means they're vulnerable.

Then again, you don't have to avoid echoes by 50 miles either as our day vfr wonderjet does.

Anyway, it seems strange things are afoot at the circle k.

Nope, I meant only what I wrote...nothing more, nothing less. So, please don't put words in my mouth.

For those of you in the pool... What minimums did you get accepted into the pool with? Is the "good ol' boy system" in effect when applicants are being considered or is the selection process run by a computer rack and stack system?

Jerry, I'm one of the Astar guys (well, not the 250k Astar guys) and while I hate to see any reduction in fleet size, I am not worried to see these BCF's retire. The company had said that they were on the way out and now they have kept their word (after keeping them a bit longer than originally planned to finish up some profitable contracts) and the old jets are parked.

And, yes, I am vulnerable, but it's no news flash that every pilot at every airline is vulnerable.

One reason for the demise of my old company was their refusal to update their fleet. We had 727's, A-300B4F's (3 man), and the DC-8's until the very end. Their entire fleet was built 30 to nearly 50 years ago. ABX, Omni, World, Kalitta, and Southern all had more modern fleets and survived longer than we did. To my way of thinking, getting rid of the deadwood is smart.

My industry expectations have been severely altered in a negative way, yet I maintain that Atlas management is ahead of the power curve on this one. From my fairly in depth study of this industry and this airline, I have no doubt that they are aggressively pursuing success, profits, and growth. Ask me in ten years if they succeeded.

8

130J,
Pilots seem to be getting the call for interviews with everything from the published minimums all the way up to … well, lots of time and ratings. The biggest couple of determinants seem to be knowledge of the current Atlas operations (specifically the schedules and your ability to fly those schedules for an entire career), the Atlas history, recommendations, and patient persistence.
And ity appears to be "rack and stack" until you get the call. Only then do the recs help.
I'll be the first to step in and suggest that you do some reading to catch up on the Atlas news. This particular thread, although really long (and at times filled with side tracks about war stories and grills) is unique in it's incredibly civil and informative content authored specifically toward pilots like you who want a job here.
I know it's long, but if you want to know if it is a job you would want and if you want to know how to get it, grab your favorite beverage and take a couple of nights to read up on Atlas.
It's not the best airline out there, but surprisingly few pilots here seem to want to move over to the majors.
8

I got into the pool with 6000+ hours. Talking to HR at a job fair or aviation conference seems to help, if you are really interested in flying for Atlas.

OK...so instead of posting some insipid video that repeats itself, how about using the keys and putting some words out there?

The BCF's were always going to be short timers. 744 has been around long enough and has that understanding...just like he understands what it means to be in the right seat with a potential axe hanging over his head.

DC8 had it right. And Bill Flynn...whether you like him or not...has made business calls here that have ensured the long term stability of the airline.

And yeah...that is based on the 5 uniforms I have in my closet...

I agree, we seem to stay ahead of our competition by running the best fleet of aircraft available. As I understand it, we only leased the BCFs to bridge the gap on on the delayed 747-8s. I feel that as the ACMI and commercial charter sectors strengthen again, we will find the right aircraft, at the right time to capture some of that growth.

It's not a video, it's a .gif.

5 uniforms? Heck, I had 4 in my closet before I turned 30. :D