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FmrPropCapt 07-11-2019 09:51 PM

A union could bring the FAA to take a closer look and do EVERYONE a favor and shut that place down before...

TiredSoul 07-11-2019 11:01 PM


Originally Posted by FmrPropCapt (Post 2851910)
A union could bring the FAA to take a closer look and do EVERYONE a favor and shut that place down before...

The new and improved FAA is all about redemption and not about punitive action so they’ll give management 127 chances to get it right......except when you’re a private pilot.........then they’ll 709 your @ss for for taxiing off the centerline.

Varsity 07-12-2019 07:05 AM


Originally Posted by TiredSoul (Post 2851916)
The new and improved FAA is all about redemption and not about punitive action so they’ll give management 127 chances to get it right......except when you’re a private pilot.........then they’ll 709 your @ss for for taxiing off the centerline.

Pre- Max debacle yes. Post- Max, yet to be seen.

The FAA's credibility as a regulator has come under fire, they are yearning to prove their worth.

TiredSoul 07-12-2019 12:41 PM


Originally Posted by Varsity (Post 2852032)
The FAA's credibility as a regulator has come under fire, they are yearning to prove their worth.

My fancytron is MEL’d that still means they suck.....right?

4runner 07-13-2019 05:12 PM

You’re referring to Swift or Comair JFK circa 2000’s?

captjns 07-13-2019 05:32 PM


Originally Posted by randomroute (Post 2852725)
The MEL is the minimum EQUIPMENT list...what about the minimum working conditions list? What about the minimum ADM list? What about the PIC responsibility list? What about the common sense list? Planes break. It happens. It happens alot more often when they are older and pass their original life expectancy date. But what about all the processes and decisions and common sense items that the FAA also affords pilots outside of hardware?

Why accept rolling MEL’s?

If you get onto a plane thats hot as hell, with no passengers on board (and ground air connected)-go through the paperwork and see that the APU is yet again MEL’d. Do you allow 149 people to board and wait until startup with the hopes of old idling engines to cool the plane down at some unspecified time before takeoff or descent? Do you allow your flight attendants to have to deal with passengers that will be unruly and unreasonable during a perceived delay? What if an argument about overhead bin space incites frustration (daily occurrence). What if theres a paperwork delay (daily occurrence). What if you’re single pack on top of that (daily occurrence)? What if you find out youre too heavy to depart and have to take time to come up with a performance compromise (daily occurrence)? What if that typical afternoon storm is coming through and you may have a ground delay/stop? What if the ground handlers havent even started loading the bags yet, and all the passengers are onboard (daily occurence)?

Who is telling you that you have to fly like that? Who is telling you that you have to keep that plane? Who is telling you that you need to go or else?

The answer is there are invisible forces that ensure the ‘finger on the trigger’ mentality exists. From schedulers to operations, and 119’s; ‘you better fly that plane...because the alternative can be ______’.

The FAA and their regulating is one thing, the company in question and its’ operating principle is another.

It’s a terrible situation when incompetent individuals in OCC leave their crews to solve problems without support.

Sometimes the crew has to take matters into their own hands. Been there done that ranging to no ground handling, legal reps in foreign lands, immigration and customs... sounds like the folks at Swift is not immune from incompetence within the organization. The typical statement “Must of fallen through the cracks” gets old very quickly.

Inoperative APU... hot temperatures??? Been there... Take an extra ton of fuel... brief all ground personnel of the plan. Have the ground services advise the flight crewmembers when the pits loaded and closed. Inform and obtain permission from Ground Control, of intentions. Start engine 2. Turn on the right pack... cool down the cabin... board the pax. Never been an issue, even at the noise sensitive airports, round the world.

Company wants to b!tch about the extra gas burned??? Let them. Insist they personally ride along to witness the quality of their product.

So-called cleared Mx items??? Enter the discrepancy and note it as a “Repeat Item”. Take a picture of the log page for the just in case factor. Gets the attention of the folks at their weakly CAS meetings.

As rare as it may be... there are quality CPs and DOs that do stand by their crews.

Hope the wrinkles get ironed out.

TikkleMe 07-14-2019 05:21 AM

What about weight and balance?:D

slinkydinkpilot 07-14-2019 07:32 AM

Where did the real aviators go!!!
 
Lack of expeirence along with previously or working with a company that spoon feeds you everything you need, does not make you a 121 Sup pilot or know what he or she has to do to get the job done. Most 121 Sup Ops still requires true aviators. Regionals make it way to easy for the restricted ATP pilots and they should because of lack of knwledge and expierence. If you want a challenge on how very well seasoned older airline pilots got the job done and still do as aviators than 121 Sup OPS is your thing. If you do stick with it and learn, it will just make you a much better pilot and give you a better understanding of a scheduled ops deals with that a 121 sch pilot has no idea of. If not stay at the regionals be your self intitled pilot who has no idea of what the real world of flying used to be or still is to a degree. Regional pilots just show up they dont manage its done for them.

slinkydinkpilot 07-14-2019 07:37 AM


Originally Posted by LOA72sealedit4m (Post 2717199)
This place is a complete joke of an airline; I was there for training as a First Officer, and coming from a reputable regional airline; I could tell right away this place does not have their act together. At first glance it looked like a very lucrative job; $66.00/hr, full pay in training at the min guarantee plus per diem and here's the catcher... 40hrs of pay for the 2 months of pointless CBT's you have to do before you show up to class. (we'll revisit the 40hrs pay subject later)
So comes the first day of class, there are six of us and it's in a hotel conference room, not even at the hotel we're staying at; we had to shuttle over to another hotel to use their conference room.. hmm okay. So on the first day, the CEO's daughter who works for the company comes in to take care of the drug and alcohol testing and I kid you not the first words out of her mouth were "You all are in for a very rude awakening." She didn't say "hi, hello," or anything; just sat in the back of the room with a scowl on her face the whole time. Then she assigned us another CBT on top of the many we already had to do, but this one was 3hrs worth of videos that were made in the 1980's about Drug and Alcohol abuse (had absolutely nothing to do with the 737 or company procedures) then it made you take a 15 question test which you had to score a 100% on otherwise you would have to go back and watch the full 3hrs of videos again to re-take the test. Literally everybody in class had to spend an entire day going through hours of videos to keep taking the test until we got all the answers correct. Our instructor even emailed her asking why this was necessary and she never got back to him. She changed the passing rate to an 80% only to go back and change it to 100%, failing me and two others forcing us to have to do it all over again. Very nice young lady to say the least…

The training was basically non-existent, not to rail on the instructor; he was a very nice man and genuinely cared about our well being however the company gave him nothing to work with at all. No syllabus or anything; we basically sat in class the first week going over Drug and Alcohol BS and pointless Ops Specs that had nothing to do with the type of flying that we were going to be doing. There was a former Director of Ops sitting in the back “monitoring the class” and every time somebody had a relevant question he would insult their intelligence with “Are you sure you’re an ATP rated pilot?” Like seriously dude? There was only one or two days where we actually covered systems on the 737 of the two weeks that I was in training. If you wanted to learn the plane before you got to sim, you had better teach yourself because they sure as heck aren’t going to do that. It was an all self taught course and the instructor was there to basically baby sit us. I have heard of people who are not prepared when they get to the sims and given the very few sim sessions you have, many people fail the check ride or the oral and end up tarnishing their FAA record for this place.

Then one day the lady who is in charge of payroll came in and we asked her if she was familiar with the new pay structure of full pay in training plus 40hrs of credit for the CBT’s on our first paycheck. She gave us a very vague response and danced around the question like a politician. So came our first paycheck and to my huge surprise I did not get even close to what I calculated I should get. I estimated we should get about 5k for two weeks at full pay plus per diem and 40hrs CBT pay. Nope, we all each got a whopping $1300.00. Nobody could honestly explain this to us and one of the guys in my class who was training as a captain noticed he got the FO pay rate instead of Capt. pay. That was when he had enough and walked out. The chief pilot came in after hearing of the captain quitting and asked “did this man quit” we said yes, to which the chief pilot yelled “GOOD,” then grabbed his name tag off the desk and ripped it apart into about 20 pieces and slammed it into the trash can. The next day we had to undergo TSA training because as a pilot with Swift you have to be a TSA agent too. Complete waste of time in that class, however that morning another guy in our class decided to quit as well. When the chief pilot heard of two guys quitting in two days, he came in the class with a bribe to us all (Dunkin Donuts) and said “Okay guys let’s eat and talk this over.” We stated to him the issues we had been having with our pay and that the company is not honoring what they said they would pay us. He then called the payroll department and had a 15min. phone call basically arguing with them the entire time trying to get us paid saying if they don’t pay us, the rest of us are going to walk out. Well that wasn’t good enough for payroll because they still refused to pay us. The Chief Pilot at this point “promised us we would get paid.” But by now we could all see that promised made are never kept with this company. Another guy quit and walked out shortly after.
Later that day the Chief Pilot and Director of ops came in the room with only three out of six of us still remaining and attacked us saying basically saying he didn’t like us and had no intention of keeping us around. Two guys immediately walked out which left only one remaining.
This is just my experience with Swift Air; a quick google search will reveal MANY MORE LIKE IT!
A person in upper management said they were shocked about the reviews and forum on airlinepilotcentral however, apparently they didn’t learn their lesson the first time around. Thanks again though for the Dunkin Donuts, it more than makes up for the $3000.00 which I am still currently owed!

You must still be unemployed I assume!! Get real Dude!!

Jeff90 07-14-2019 07:47 AM


Originally Posted by slinkydinkpilot (Post 2852968)
Lack of expeirence along with previously or working with a company that spoon feeds you everything you need, does not make you a 121 Sup pilot or know what he or she has to do to get the job done. Most 121 Sup Ops still requires true aviators. Regionals make it way to easy for the restricted ATP pilots and they should because of lack of knwledge and expierence. If you want a challenge on how very well seasoned older airline pilots got the job done and still do as aviators than 121 Sup OPS is your thing. If you do stick with it and learn, it will just make you a much better pilot and give you a better understanding of a scheduled ops deals with that a 121 sch pilot has no idea of. If not stay at the regionals be your self intitled pilot who has no idea of what the real world of flying used to be or still is to a degree. Regional pilots just show up they dont manage its done for them.


Well said....


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