new guy

I have no problem with being gone 20+ days a month. Any benefit for staying gone that long? Also, could I see a sample of the trips? Mainly looking at destinations. The idea is going into relatively unimproved areas sounds fun to me.

A Squared

Well, Currently there is a plane on contract in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. Most flights are to an oil company facility up in the highlands, but there have been some intentional flights to Australia and Indonesia, and perhaps other destinations. Next month there will be an airplane in Yellowknife , NWT Canada. It will be flying into some remote diamond mines Northeast of Yellowknife. There is a plane on Ad-hoc charter detail in Laredo TX. Destinations vary as charters come up, but a lot of the trips are into Mexico for auto parts, and then to some destination near an assembly plant. (Lexington KY, Knoxville TN, Niagara NY, Hamilton Ontario, etc.) but charters to other places also come up. You could find yourself on the way to Panama, Brazil, Greenland, it's a crap shoot.

new guy

Sent a private message. I don't know anyone at Lynden and would love to talk about it.

LotsOfQuestions

Since this is the only real Lynden thread at the moment, what is the upgrade time at Lynden looking like? I'm not expecting to hear 3 years, but with smaller company I'm just worried it's something like 20.

A Squared

The most junior line holding captain was hired in September 2015. Lynden has "Reserve Captains", who are captain qualified and may be assigned as captain, but normally hold first officer lines. Starting about a year and a half ago, Lynden began paying reserve captains at captain's scale. Prior to that a reserve captain was only paid at captain's rate when they were assigned as captains. There are currently 3 reserve captains. The most junior reserve captain was hired January 2018.

Edit: For what it's worth, the most junior line-holding captain upgraded to reserve captain in July 2018 and became a line-holding captain in July 2020. The *most* senior reserve captain was hired in March 2/17 and was upgraded to reserve captain in December 2018.

LotsOfQuestions

Well that's much better than I was worried about, 5 years is a pretty expeditious upgrade timeline.

What's the flying like? How often are you landing on short/dirt strips? And thanks so much for taking the time to answer all of these questions, it's really good info.

A Squared

That's an upgrade to "reserve captain" Lynden is currently kinda short on FOs so the reserve captains aren't sitting in the left seat much. But they are getting Captain scale pay, so there's that.

Very mixed bag. A lot of trips into Mexico for Car parts, then on to an assembly plant in the US. You may go into Atlanta/LAX/CLT to pick up a jet engine for one of the passenger haulers and take it to wherever their plane is broken. No current AMC contracts outside of Alaska, but in the no-so-distant past, flying around from Air Force Base to Air force base was a possibility, it could happen again. As I mentioned above, there's an airplane currently flying out of Port Morseby, Papua New Guinea. No current contracts in Africa, but there have been in the past, and may be in the future. The majority of the flying in Alaska is scheduled cargo flights to regional hubs where goods are distributed to smaller villages by 135 operators using smaller aircraft, but there's also a fair measure of charter flying within Alaska.


Fairly frequently, two of the scheduled destinations in Alaska are gravel runways, and the charters within Alaska are to gravel runways more often than not. Occasionally there are flights into frozen lakes. Lynden has authorization to deviate (in Alaska) from the Part 121 requirement to be able to stop the aircraft in 60% of the available runway length. There is a qualification system for assigning captains to shorter than standard runways. If you're qualified, you may do that fairly often. Not all captains are qualified. Any First officer or Flight engineer could be assigned to a flight to a shorter than 60% airstrip.

pineapples

How is it nowadays if you live in anchorage and would prefer to get the Alaska lines only as a new hire? Or are new hires being sent out abroad even if they live in Alaska?

Do the Alaska lines come home every night or are out for 5 days all over Alaska?

Any insight to this would be much appreciated!

A Squared

If you live in ANC and preferred to fly out of Anchorage as a new hire your chances are pretty good. less than 40% of the FO list is ANC based, so the competition for Alaska based lines is not that great. It used to be kinda the opposite for ANC based FO's and FEs they would bid the overseas work, (because you make more money) and get "junior manned" to an Alaska line, while someone junior with a non-ANC Gateway would get the line they bid. That was a source of unhappiness, naturally. They have changed some policies so that is not as much of a problem now. It's harder for captains to remain in ALaska, as more than 70 percent of the captains list is ANC based, so there's more captains bidding for the same number of ANC lines.



The vast majority of the time you'd be back at the end of the night. Usually, you're hauling a load of cargo out of Anchorage, and coming back to Anchorage almost completely empty. On occasion you'll wind up overnighting at some other location in Alaska and doing a series of flights out of there, but is more the exception than the rule.

pineapples

I appreciate the reply! I’m an FO flying for an outfit in anchorage so looking for something that would predominantly keep me in state but open to going abroad occasionally.

I’m also wondering about how the culture and atmosphere is overall in recent years if willing to share? Is it a decent company to fly for? Any reason why less than 40% Alaska FOs? Is there a lot of turnaround and people leaving or people happy to stay long term? It seems like they’ve up the pay and bonuses sound decent.

Again, thanks for any input on the company and flying culture!