StandardBrief

Can somebody honestly and objectively explain to me what the draw of Atlas is? I work in the overseas contracting world and every day it seems I hear about somebody who quit to go fly for Atlas. They quit a job paying $200,000 or more per year, where you work less than 8 hours a day, doing a pretty uncomplicated mission. Here is what I see as an outsider looking in:

-50 hour monthly guarantee 1st year which equates to pure garbage pay
-Imputed income for the gateway travel. NOT home-basing.
-Recruiting told me personally over the phone that upgrade time is 4 years...so probably longer than that in reality.
-On-going contract issues
-Atlas pilots still find themselves in the same ****-hole we live in now.
-$1600/month during training
-Last and certainly not least: why did that 767 crash in Texas? (god bless them and their families). There seems to be no apparent rush on finding the cause of that, at least that I can find. If you all have official info, please pass it along.

Seriously, why do pilots find themselves signing on the dotted line at Atlas or at Southern? Why wouldn't any experienced pilot with a few thousand hours walk right into better paying outfits with true home-basing like Wheels-up, NetJets, Flexjet? Is the chance to fly a 747/767? Out of all the operations I read about on these forums, Atlas by far seems to be the worst.

What secret is in the sauce that the rest of us outsiders are missing out on?

nitefr8dog

Sounds like some info on the TX crash is coming soon..

BluePAX

If you have the PIC and a degree before Atlas then it may be your ticket for purple or brown.

wjcandee

And there is a significant amount of official information out there, as well as a very detailed unofficial synopsis that most people in the know agree with. The actual accident sequence is pretty well and believably documented at this point. What will be most interesting about the NTSB report is how and whether they are beginning to get to why. Or whether it instead falls into the category of you never know how someone's going to react in an emergency until they're confronted with a real one.

nitefr8dog

Should hear something by the end of the month...

ocskyguy

One of the increasingly evident outcomes of the automation aviation world we now live in is that, while we know in training that the bad thing is coming and we are prepared to react, we are very complacent in our day to day flying lives. We believe that bad things are just a training event and will never happen outside the simulator.

When I was a freight puppy, bad things happened on an almost weekly basis. Shut down the engine, lose the hydraulics, etc... Just a fact of life flying in the back alleys of aviation. Now that we are all gentrified, we share the same traits as our passenger carrying brethren. A firm belief that nothing startling or scary will ever happen outside of the sim.

No detail revealing here, but I have some insight as to what went wrong in Texas. We as a pilot community need to reinforce ourselves about the fact that the starling thing can happen outside the sim. At work, after a long day. And, be truly prepared to deal with it.

Just sayin'

DC8DRIVER

You have it fairly well scoped out at Atlas. There is no really sound and compelling reason to apply there as long as there are so many other good options out there that compensate and treat their pilots much better than Atlas.

And, yes, the big jet does seem to be an irresistible lure for some who have not yet learned that you should NEVER take a job for the equipment.

boeingdvr

Upgrade is shooting to never. Loss of flying and loss of A/C. I could easily see 767 upgrade over the 6-7 year mark.

I hate to say never, but I don’t see how a new hire would see 74 captain. Maybe 15 years

CaptDave

Hahaha. Okay. Tell that to the most recent 73 upgrade awards that are all less than a year on property.

Contract issue has yet to be resolved but will at some point down the road.

Phoenix21

This kind of sounds like a management type question so perhaps you’ll get the answers you seek by conducting exit interviews and asking them questions face to face about how things could be improved at your operation to keep them there.