Welcome aboard! Study hard (goes without saying) and you'll be fine. See ya on the line!

 

Welcome aboard!

 

Welcome. You will find the training department is excellent. Study hard and one quick piece of advice:
Flows and callouts…….on day one start looking at them.

 

Thanks guys! I will see you soon

 

I currently have a class date with one of AA's wholly-owned carriers and the recent pay increase with bonuses and experience bonuses makes it very attractive. The no interview flow to AA is a bonus but can't count on it. I also have been contacted by ABX recently to interview and with a CVG base could see myself there long term/retire instead of chasing the next big thing.

Provided that I pass the interview with ABX, would you decline the regional and money that goes with it (at least for the next 2 years) and go to ABX?

How does a typical reserve line at ABX look like? Is it a solid block of 16/17 day's on or are the lines broken down in more manageable blocks? What are your minimum day's off? What do you pay for your health benefits for you and/or you and your spouse?

 

I’d do the regional to AA thing. Won’t take long and your future self would be thanking you. Future ACMI pilot contracts will be thanking you as well. I think these incentives at the regionals will be the best thing that ever happened to ACMI pilots down the road.

 

This is a phrase I never thought I would be reading in my life! I'm not at ABX, but I cannot see myself going back to dragging my bag through a passenger terminal.

 

go to the regional, get time and 121 Ca experience. Try it for a year or 2. You’ll be able to get another interview at a ACMI anytime and more than likely a legacy. Who knows, by then maybe we’ll have better pay rates too. *sarcasm

 

I have been around the flying business long enough to see it go boom-bust-boom with a long period of blaaaaah interspersed in there when the retirement age was raised from 60 to 65. I have generally made my career decisions by asking myself the question, "Do I want to be there if the music stops?" Because the next bust is coming. The music always stops, but nobody knows when it might happen. Nobody foresaw the late 90s hiring boom going bust at the end of 2001. Nobody made their career plans based on five years of stagnation due to few retirements and minimal hiring.


We may already be in a recession. Where will you be on the day it's officially called? Will you be happy in that seat if you're in it for several years?



50% of lines (regular or reserve) are written with a single block of days off - CBA specifies blocks of days off rather than blocks of work days - so that could be a single block of 16/17 work days or split into two blocks with 14 off in the middle. The rest of the lines may have two or three blocks of days off. If you want to break it up, whether you're on a regular line or a reserve line, you more than likely can do that.



14 days per month.



$128.40 bi-weekly for the low-end plan employee+spouse, which is still pretty good coverage. Employee only is a little less than half of that. There are two higher-priced tiers with lower deductibles and out-of-pocket limits.

 

Thanks everyone! I never thought I would read to go take advantage of a regional right now. You're not the only ones, I contacted several friends flying for a range of different organizations from Netjets to Atlas, and they're telling me the same thing as most of you did, take the AA offer and take the money, as money left on the table now is hard to make up for in the future.

I think Reactivity said it best, and that's the best advice I've heard in a long time: ""Do I want to be there if the music stops?". That's.a hard question to answer, but I'm leaning going to the regional and get some 121 PIC time I don't currently have as the upgrade for me would be faster at that regional then ABX. It could give me more options in the future that I don't currently have. On the other hand, if the music stops soon, I would much rather be at ABX and be treated like a professional and hope that it doesn't affect ABX like it did for almost 20 years not that long ago.