Empire Airlines General questions
 

Hello,

I just applied to Empire, and am hoping for KAFW.

How is the QOL ?

How much flight time?

Company culture ?

Training?

Thanks !

Empire
 

Not a bad place to be. You are treated well. Only downside is flight time is slow to build especially at AFW.

May ask for Ohana
 

It seems you get more time at Ohana, so I may try that.

Does anyone know what TUL is looking like? What do the schedules look like?

Anyone flying Ohana have any info on pay, lines, upgrade times?

Tulsa has two ATR's. one departs for AFW at about 9pm sits for a couple hours and returns about 330am. The other leaves a little later for AFW and returns a little later as well. monday night through thursday night.

Pay is what is posted online. Look under the Empire profile its buried in there. Lines are mixed, about 17 days a month with a mixture of flying, airport reserve and long call reserve. Upgrade as soon as you meet FAA mins.

Any info on the PHX C208 runs? I saw them looking for Pilots in PHX on the orange site and I was just curious.

I think its mostly early start, short flight, hang out at the outstation, home around dinner time.

How about "commuting" from one of the other islands or do you have to live on Oahu?

You would need a crash pad on Oahu

Anyone based in GEG on the ATR? What’s the sched like? Home most nights? Thanks in advance

Early start (around 7:00 am), short flight, hang out at the outstation, home around dinner time (around 5:30 pm -6:00 pm).

Do they hire at minimums? I sent my stuff in a week ago and haven’t heard back from them. Interested in the PHX base.

Sounds great. Thinking of walking my resume into CDA. Thanks for the info!

The hiring mins are on the website.

Do they consistently hire into the Ohana side?, it's a small operation that's why. Looking at applying in a few months.

Information on Ohana
 

Does anyone here have knowledge about Ohana airlines?

They are adding 3-4 aircraft in the next 6 months, so yes, they are hiring.

What information are you looking for?

Thanks , hopefully the timing works out.

Does anyone know where to find an interview gouge for the ATR FO position? The usual suspects don't have many up to date reports. Worst thing to do Is get caught like a deer in the headlights with the technical portion...if they get into the nitty gritty.

I heard there may be a class in late April for C208. Not sure about the ATR's.

Well darn missed the opening in SEA looks like they hired someone before I was able to finish up my night hours.

Maybe next time ....

Seems like they base it off experience. I had some 135 time going into the interview and they didn't really ask anything technical, only a couple "tell me what you would do if..." I heard others that were instructors when getting interviewed got a couple tech questions.

Don't sweat it too much, I haven't heard anyone say that the interview was tough. Its all over the phone too, so just have an IFR cheat sheet in front of you so that you don't space out and say something stupid :D

The interview is casual, HR phone call with TMAT and WWYD questions. If that goes well, you talk to one of the CPs. They both know what they are looking for experience wise, so neither of them are going to try to getcha with obscure questions.

In other news, this was announced today.

Empire Airlines :: purplerunway

I saw that today in the morning. It looks promising, just like the regionals are doing. How long in theory could the process take say starting at 1200 on the Caravan, to FedEx? Also I heard Empire is getting the new Cessna Skycouriers in 2020.

Guys in my base are flying 10 to 28 hours a month in the 208. Not sure about other bases. The ATR crews are flying about 1.5 times that.

I believe the program requires a min commitment to Empire of 36 months and 500 121 pic, and Fedex wants 2500 total.

From a start of 1200 total time like you specify, figuring 25 hrs a month my math garners me 52 months, or 4.3 years at my domicile.

That of course doesn't factor in any other variables.

Provided a guy meets all the other requirements Fedex wants, one could build the time a lot faster in other ways.

I guess the variable is how much weight they are going to give Empire connection.

The Cessna twins...weren't those getting built in China and now possibly Trumped?

Anyone have any more info on Ohana?
Typical daily schedule?
Min day off?
Home every night?
Salary Base pay?
HA guaranteed interview program?
No union?

Hey just curious if you happen to know what's competitive right now for DECs on the ATR at Ohana.

Going to Empire for the Caravan but curious about the ATR. How is the training and QOL on the 121 side? With the new purple runway program, is it a good idea to stick around at the feeders in hope of getting on with FedEx, or just leave for an LLC like Southwest, Jetblue, or Allegiant? I'm going the feeder route in hope of bypassing a regional to a larger aircraft like a B737 or A320.

Yeah, Ohana is great if you want QOL over flight time.
Daily schedule- you either work AM or PM half a day. that might slightly change once we start flying cargo, but no one knows what that schedule will look like yet.
Home every night
typically work about 18 days a month, but FOs can easily trade out of days down to 12 if you want.
Salary is listed on the website, but first year is $60K plus $12K retention bonus paid out twice a year.

There isn't much in the way of guarantee with getting to HA, but in the next year or so we will most likely be HA employees when they buy the Island Air cert. so who knows what will happen with that

Your a legend Redbeard. Appreciate the info! Been at a regional on the mainland for about 2 years and have been thinking about Ohana for about the same time. How you like it?

Thanks again!

Well, I am still new with Ohana. But honestly Im loving it. I haven't slept in a hotel since training and its great. There is always going to be some headaches with any job, but going home every night, 8 hour duty days or less usually, and a really laid back pilot group make it a breeze. sure, the price of living in HI is steep, but on a good salary its not hard. the beach is free, hikes are free, buy a surfboard and then surfing is free.

Feel free to shoot me a PM and I can answer more questions or put in a good word

I'm from Montana and I've been working my whole carreer to get back to the NW some where, anywhere. MSO, GEG, etc... It seems the further I progess in aviation the further from my goal I get. I'm currently at an ACMI carrier with about 5000hrs 4000 of which are multi-engine turbine, but I seem to be stuck here with no turbine PIC.

I'm looking for any info regarding upgrades on the ATR (I'm not concerned with building time. I know it will be slow), vacancies near Montana, schedule, QOL and anything else you guys might find helpful.

Thanks

Thing is they dont hire street captains without the requisite 1000 PIC so it's almost a catch 22 scenario.

Street captain aside, anyone know if they ever waive this upgrade requirement if you're in good standing at the company? otherwise I'm looking at a very long SIC timebuilding road (was told they will honor SIC time to meet the requirement but at a 2:1 conversion).

If you want to get back to Montana and get multi turbine PIC you may want to consider Alpine Air. They operate BE99s and 1900s in Montana, Denver, Sioux Falls and SLC. It’s 135 single pilot so if you need 121 PIC it won’t help.
In Montana the big domicile is Billings. But there is a possibility of getting MSO, BTM, or HLN. These go to people who want to live in these locations so movement can be really slow. Timing is everything.
If you have questions or would like to get contact information please feel free to pm me.

Correct, you would need 1000PIC to be street captain.

mins for upgrade are- 2500TT, 1000PIC, 1000MEL, 300Turbine, 500Crew.

if your an FO looking to upgrade, you get credits of 2:1 for TT and PIC time, that you fly with company. plus you get 1 hour of credit towards PIC for every landing you perform as a crew member.

How much flight time are you getting a month on average? Trying to figure out how long it would take to make captain there.

That's more than reasonable because if legs are typically 1-1.5hrs and you perform half the landings , and you get 2:1 conversion then it's basically a 1:1 conversation right?

I.e. fly 400hrs get 200 PIC equivalent, and in those 400hrs perform say 130 landings. Therefore you'd get 330 PIC hour credits for 400hrs flight time ? This is ohana or all empire policy ?