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Swift Air - The truth

Old 08-12-2018, 11:17 AM
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Default Swift Air - The truth

I know there’s an active post about Swift Air but I felt this needs a whole new separate post. I have been here for a short time and I’m on my way out and for the love of aviation and respect to fellow pilots I feel I need to warn everyone as much as I can about this place to STAY AWAY.

Swift Air is a breeding ground for incidents, violations, and God forbid, an accident in the near future. There are some good people trying to do the right thing but are overwhelmed with a long company culture of cutting deals, violating FAR’s, and just all around being scum about things.

Where to begin…

My journey started at Swift when their recruiter lied about every aspect of the job. I’m not sure who’s recruiting presently, but if you speak to Richard Constanza Watts beware. Everything I was told was a lie. Everything you will be told will probably be a lie too. Pay, benefits, days off, bases, schedules, everything. I came to find out various colleagues were made the same promises and made life changing decisions leaving jobs based on these conditions to find out we had all been lied to. If this recruiter ever received any warning or communication from the company about his actions is still uncommunicated.

I’ll start from the beginning… training.

2 days before your class date you will receive about 100+ hours worth of CBT’s that you do not get paid for and you are required to finish before your first day of class. When you arrive to indoc everyone complains they were not able to complete the CBT’s on time and the first week is spent on your computer clicking away through the “required” CBT’s. Absolutely nothing else is done during this week.

I have been at various airlines in my life and this has been the absolute worst training program I have been a part of. Be ready to teach yourself a 737 because there is no instruction program, no curriculum and no outlined schedule as to what to expect from your training.

If you are someone who has never flown a Boeing plane I feel sorry for you because no one will teach you anything. Myself and various others already had experience to fall back on so it wasn’t as critical for us, but a lot of people struggled through this so called training program because there is no guidance what so ever. Every once in a while the FAA will show up to supervise and Swift will magically change the location of their ground school class and pretend they’re teaching and have a busy day all of a sudden. If the FAA is not supervising, the entire day is spent doing nothing. Clicking away through about 60 minutes total worth of slides for the entire day and then a very confused and aggravated group of pilots asking questions no one has the answer to. This goes on through the entire time you spend in ground school. Just killing time.

When you come to an airline one of the biggest concerns is your seniority and where you fall on that list, am I right? Not here, seniority is inexistent. Seniority at Swift is defined by how much the manager of crew scheduling likes you and how many FAR’s you break or what deals you cut in order to save Swift from scheduling jams or things they got themselves into.

You are never assigned a seniority number and you don’t get ID’s and KCM until weeks after you are done with ground school, so forget about going home on the weekends.

Something worth mentioning is security training, where you are told you are responsible to screen passengers and you are forced to pat down your fellow classmates in order to “pass” security training. It’s not a simple pat down, no, the person giving the class will not pass you until you touch your classmates’ crotch area and buttocks. Unheard of in any airline training and in my opinion completely disrespectful.

Do not believe any timeline you are given for training because it’s all a lie. You will be told ground training is 2 weeks when it’s really 3. You will be told you’ll have off a couple days and then they’ll fly you the next day to SIMS or you will be told you’re scheduled for SIMS ASAP and you’ll sit around for weeks at home with no response from the company.

I could go one but I’m sure I’ve given you an idea of it. SIM training is nothing better. No standardization on flows, call outs, procedures, nothing. Every sim instructor teaches you their own way of doing things and whatever the Swift Air way of doing things is never gets transmitted. On the line it’s the same thing. “I do this” - “Oh but I do it like this” - “No, I don’t do that, I do this”. Absolutely no standardization.

Moving on… for starters, the profile on APC about bases is incorrect. Swift Air has 2 bases. Phoenix and Miami. Swift also works with home basing and TDY basing that benefits a lot of people but most people out of training will get a temporary TDY base where you’ll be flown mostly in Miami until you get a hard base which in a lot of cases is Miami until you threaten to resign because you were promised a home base and then you’ll get your way. If there’s anything positive about Swift Air is their policy to positive space you where they want you to fly all the time. So as far as commuting that’s a great relief. The downside is sometimes they’ll take one of your days off to count as a “Travel Day” and you have to call back and argue to get your day off back.

In the past 2 months we’ve had a tail strike, a plane land long and go off a runway, and a crew almost take off from a taxi way in EWR. If these facts don’t say something about the training and standardization of Swift Air I don’t know how else to prove my point. Unfortunately, these are the only public incidents, only God knows what other incidents happened that Swift was able to hide under the rug.

I have met some good people here but it is definitely a complex group. It seems most people here have never been at a regular scheduled airline and have hopped around 135’s and/or charters their entire lives. Not that there’s anything wrong with this but it brings forth a culture of people that are used to doing things a certain way that’s well… not the way 121 scheduled airlines work. Mix this group with a complete lack of standardization and you get problems. In my opinion, a lot of people here can’t go anywhere else because they have too many skeletons in their closet. Skeletons that they keep taking out every time they come in to work.

It is well known that pilots here constantly break FAR’s to cut deals with scheduling. You have a broken plane and writing it up will cause a delay or a cancelled flight? Scheduling will probably offer you a lot of money so you don’t ground it and keep it off the books. You’re about to time out and there’s no other pilot to replace you? Here comes scheduling with a juicy offer to get you to break your 117’s and keep flying so as to not cancel the flight.

This previous month a lot of pilots had their pay screwed up. What do you think was the reason? Since we recently switched to a software that’s actually tracking our flight and duty limits it wouldn’t allow pilots to keep flying illegally on paper. So the brave and resourceful manager of crew scheduling realized you could just delete flights or not record them so it still looks legal in the books, but those pilots that flew all those illegal hours still wanted their their money… what a dilemma.

I feel it’s necessary to point out the manager of crew scheduling is named David Speaks. He has been fired from all of his previous airlines for bad crew handling. Yet, here he is at Swift. This is the person responsible for bribing you into flying over your limit, trying to get you to fly when you’re illegal, and retaliating on you if you ever let him down. Yup. Can’t get up and get to the airport in 30 minutes to fly something illegal? You’ll start getting terrible assignments from now on. Crew scheduling works assigning the better trips or flights to their favorites or the people that get them out of jams. Again, seniority is completely irrelevant here and it's all about how well you get along with the scheduling department.

There’s a group of pilots that always take the deals and “save” scheduling from jams. These pilots will get paychecks that are about 50% to 60% higher than yours.

Same thing goes for MX issues. Yes, if you don’t write up your plane and keep it flying even when you have no go items that should be taken care of… You’ll receive special compensation for “helping the company out”.

It’s terribly sad that Swift Air supports this behavior and rewards it, while the people that are following the rules get underpaid and under cutted.

Same goes for flying the line… Like I said before, there is a very diverse group of pilots that come from too many different places. If you mix this with a complete lack of standardization and disrespect for any sort of rules, you get a group of pilots where no one is speaking the same language.

Procedures are constantly done ineffectively, few guys know how to properly use the box, and weight and balance is completely disregarded. Manipulation of weights, loads, fuel, and pax is a constant practice to make the flights look legal on paper when it isn’t. And no one’s doing anything about it.

For instance, the Miami operation is basically a freight business. The ground handlers fudge the loads to hide the fact you’re taking thousands of extra lbs of cargo on board and then OPS gets on your case for wanting to unload bags. Like I mentioned before, it’s a standard practice to make the loads look legal when it’s not.

A lot of the check airmen are only check airmen because they were friends with the chief pilot from a previous life. That said, the chief pilot is ALSO a check airmen… I don’t think I’ve been at an airline where a double role is assigned like this and a chief pilot performs both duties…

I have had very little interaction with the current chief pilot so I cannot give a full experience, but the general moral is that he is unhelpful and vengeful. Again, this is only what the other pilots say…

Just a few last things worth mentioning as far as scheduling goes…You are not assigned a fix scheduled you are assigned days off and on. Some of these assignments are 16 day trips. It is a lie that there are only 3-5 day trips as mentioned in the other thread. A lot of pilots are constantly working on a daily basis until their legal rests come, only to keep working after that.

In a lot of cases you are assigned a 6 day trip for instance, then they’ll say you need your 30 hours rest which they’ll give to you in a remote city somewhere in the US, and when that’s done you’ll be assigned flying for the next 6 days and so on. Crews are constantly worked to their limits.

Sure, a lot of people say it’s growing pains, but the company hasn’t communicated any direction, plan, or outlook for Swift. There are constant rumors about pay raises, better work conditions, bidding, lines.. you name it.. that are never followed through.

Almost everyone here is unhappy, the morale is terrible, the bad practices and the complete lack for regulations makes this place a truly terrible airline to work for. In my opinion, it is a miracle our planes are still flying everyday.

To anyone who even looked at Swift as a possibility, I cannot stress enough how much of a mistake you are making if you choose this airline. If you’re at a regional, no matter how bad you think you have it, you’re better off than here.

There are multiple pilot’s I’ve heard have gone to the FAA and I myself have written my letter. If anything good will come from it I don’t know. I just know I am incredibly relieved and happy to be leaving.

I don’t know if there’s hope for Swift. It’s terribly managed and the managers of certain departments are incredibly corrupt humans. That on top of terrible pay for a 737, low morale, terrible MX, lack of benefits, no quality of life and complete lack of standardization should be enough for anybody to stay away.

Just my 2 cents…
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Old 08-12-2018, 12:06 PM
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Originally Posted by onemoretogo View Post
I know there’s an active post about Swift Air but I felt this needs a whole new separate post. I have been here for a short time and I’m on my way out and for the love of aviation and respect to fellow pilots I feel I need to warn everyone as much as I can about this place to STAY AWAY.



Swift Air is a breeding ground for incidents, violations, and God forbid, an accident in the near future. There are some good people trying to do the right thing but are overwhelmed with a long company culture of cutting deals, violating FAR’s, and just all around being scum about things.



Where to begin…



My journey started at Swift when their recruiter lied about every aspect of the job. I’m not sure who’s recruiting presently, but if you speak to Richard Constanza Watts beware. Everything I was told was a lie. Everything you will be told will probably be a lie too. Pay, benefits, days off, bases, schedules, everything. I came to find out various colleagues were made the same promises and made life changing decisions leaving jobs based on these conditions to find out we had all been lied to. If this recruiter ever received any warning or communication from the company about his actions is still uncommunicated.



I’ll start from the beginning… training.



2 days before your class date you will receive about 100+ hours worth of CBT’s that you do not get paid for and you are required to finish before your first day of class. When you arrive to indoc everyone complains they were not able to complete the CBT’s on time and the first week is spent on your computer clicking away through the “required” CBT’s. Absolutely nothing else is done during this week.



I have been at various airlines in my life and this has been the absolute worst training program I have been a part of. Be ready to teach yourself a 737 because there is no instruction program, no curriculum and no outlined schedule as to what to expect from your training.



If you are someone who has never flown a Boeing plane I feel sorry for you because no one will teach you anything. Myself and various others already had experience to fall back on so it wasn’t as critical for us, but a lot of people struggled through this so called training program because there is no guidance what so ever. Every once in a while the FAA will show up to supervise and Swift will magically change the location of their ground school class and pretend they’re teaching and have a busy day all of a sudden. If the FAA is not supervising, the entire day is spent doing nothing. Clicking away through about 60 minutes total worth of slides for the entire day and then a very confused and aggravated group of pilots asking questions no one has the answer to. This goes on through the entire time you spend in ground school. Just killing time.



When you come to an airline one of the biggest concerns is your seniority and where you fall on that list, am I right? Not here, seniority is inexistent. Seniority at Swift is defined by how much the manager of crew scheduling likes you and how many FAR’s you break or what deals you cut in order to save Swift from scheduling jams or things they got themselves into.



You are never assigned a seniority number and you don’t get ID’s and KCM until weeks after you are done with ground school, so forget about going home on the weekends.



Something worth mentioning is security training, where you are told you are responsible to screen passengers and you are forced to pat down your fellow classmates in order to “pass” security training. It’s not a simple pat down, no, the person giving the class will not pass you until you touch your classmates’ crotch area and buttocks. Unheard of in any airline training and in my opinion completely disrespectful.



Do not believe any timeline you are given for training because it’s all a lie. You will be told ground training is 2 weeks when it’s really 3. You will be told you’ll have off a couple days and then they’ll fly you the next day to SIMS or you will be told you’re scheduled for SIMS ASAP and you’ll sit around for weeks at home with no response from the company.



I could go one but I’m sure I’ve given you an idea of it. SIM training is nothing better. No standardization on flows, call outs, procedures, nothing. Every sim instructor teaches you their own way of doing things and whatever the Swift Air way of doing things is never gets transmitted. On the line it’s the same thing. “I do this” - “Oh but I do it like this” - “No, I don’t do that, I do this”. Absolutely no standardization.



Moving on… for starters, the profile on APC about bases is incorrect. Swift Air has 2 bases. Phoenix and Miami. Swift also works with home basing and TDY basing that benefits a lot of people but most people out of training will get a temporary TDY base where you’ll be flown mostly in Miami until you get a hard base which in a lot of cases is Miami until you threaten to resign because you were promised a home base and then you’ll get your way. If there’s anything positive about Swift Air is their policy to positive space you where they want you to fly all the time. So as far as commuting that’s a great relief. The downside is sometimes they’ll take one of your days off to count as a “Travel Day” and you have to call back and argue to get your day off back.



In the past 2 months we’ve had a tail strike, a plane land long and go off a runway, and a crew almost take off from a taxi way in EWR. If these facts don’t say something about the training and standardization of Swift Air I don’t know how else to prove my point. Unfortunately, these are the only public incidents, only God knows what other incidents happened that Swift was able to hide under the rug.



I have met some good people here but it is definitely a complex group. It seems most people here have never been at a regular scheduled airline and have hopped around 135’s and/or charters their entire lives. Not that there’s anything wrong with this but it brings forth a culture of people that are used to doing things a certain way that’s well… not the way 121 scheduled airlines work. Mix this group with a complete lack of standardization and you get problems. In my opinion, a lot of people here can’t go anywhere else because they have too many skeletons in their closet. Skeletons that they keep taking out every time they come in to work.



It is well known that pilots here constantly break FAR’s to cut deals with scheduling. You have a broken plane and writing it up will cause a delay or a cancelled flight? Scheduling will probably offer you a lot of money so you don’t ground it and keep it off the books. You’re about to time out and there’s no other pilot to replace you? Here comes scheduling with a juicy offer to get you to break your 117’s and keep flying so as to not cancel the flight.



This previous month a lot of pilots had their pay screwed up. What do you think was the reason? Since we recently switched to a software that’s actually tracking our flight and duty limits it wouldn’t allow pilots to keep flying illegally on paper. So the brave and resourceful manager of crew scheduling realized you could just delete flights or not record them so it still looks legal in the books, but those pilots that flew all those illegal hours still wanted their their money… what a dilemma.



I feel it’s necessary to point out the manager of crew scheduling is named David Speaks. He has been fired from all of his previous airlines for bad crew handling. Yet, here he is at Swift. This is the person responsible for bribing you into flying over your limit, trying to get you to fly when you’re illegal, and retaliating on you if you ever let him down. Yup. Can’t get up and get to the airport in 30 minutes to fly something illegal? You’ll start getting terrible assignments from now on. Crew scheduling works assigning the better trips or flights to their favorites or the people that get them out of jams. Again, seniority is completely irrelevant here and it's all about how well you get along with the scheduling department.



There’s a group of pilots that always take the deals and “save” scheduling from jams. These pilots will get paychecks that are about 50% to 60% higher than yours.



Same thing goes for MX issues. Yes, if you don’t write up your plane and keep it flying even when you have no go items that should be taken care of… You’ll receive special compensation for “helping the company out”.



It’s terribly sad that Swift Air supports this behavior and rewards it, while the people that are following the rules get underpaid and under cutted.



Same goes for flying the line… Like I said before, there is a very diverse group of pilots that come from too many different places. If you mix this with a complete lack of standardization and disrespect for any sort of rules, you get a group of pilots where no one is speaking the same language.



Procedures are constantly done ineffectively, few guys know how to properly use the box, and weight and balance is completely disregarded. Manipulation of weights, loads, fuel, and pax is a constant practice to make the flights look legal on paper when it isn’t. And no one’s doing anything about it.



For instance, the Miami operation is basically a freight business. The ground handlers fudge the loads to hide the fact you’re taking thousands of extra lbs of cargo on board and then OPS gets on your case for wanting to unload bags. Like I mentioned before, it’s a standard practice to make the loads look legal when it’s not.



A lot of the check airmen are only check airmen because they were friends with the chief pilot from a previous life. That said, the chief pilot is ALSO a check airmen… I don’t think I’ve been at an airline where a double role is assigned like this and a chief pilot performs both duties…



I have had very little interaction with the current chief pilot so I cannot give a full experience, but the general moral is that he is unhelpful and vengeful. Again, this is only what the other pilots say…



Just a few last things worth mentioning as far as scheduling goes…You are not assigned a fix scheduled you are assigned days off and on. Some of these assignments are 16 day trips. It is a lie that there are only 3-5 day trips as mentioned in the other thread. A lot of pilots are constantly working on a daily basis until their legal rests come, only to keep working after that.



In a lot of cases you are assigned a 6 day trip for instance, then they’ll say you need your 30 hours rest which they’ll give to you in a remote city somewhere in the US, and when that’s done you’ll be assigned flying for the next 6 days and so on. Crews are constantly worked to their limits.



Sure, a lot of people say it’s growing pains, but the company hasn’t communicated any direction, plan, or outlook for Swift. There are constant rumors about pay raises, better work conditions, bidding, lines.. you name it.. that are never followed through.



Almost everyone here is unhappy, the morale is terrible, the bad practices and the complete lack for regulations makes this place a truly terrible airline to work for. In my opinion, it is a miracle our planes are still flying everyday.



To anyone who even looked at Swift as a possibility, I cannot stress enough how much of a mistake you are making if you choose this airline. If you’re at a regional, no matter how bad you think you have it, you’re better off than here.



There are multiple pilot’s I’ve heard have gone to the FAA and I myself have written my letter. If anything good will come from it I don’t know. I just know I am incredibly relieved and happy to be leaving.



I don’t know if there’s hope for Swift. It’s terribly managed and the managers of certain departments are incredibly corrupt humans. That on top of terrible pay for a 737, low morale, terrible MX, lack of benefits, no quality of life and complete lack of standardization should be enough for anybody to stay away.



Just my 2 cents…


Wow, this has been a horrible summer for them. Never used to be this bad. The bases are normally MIA, IWA and home based. With the vacation charters they seem to have TDY’ed everyone for the summer and are doing a base bid now I believe.

I don’t Rich lied to you, the basic premise is the 12 days off which they’ll try and get you to work more of course because they’re short. They pay is as listed on APC $66/hr at 60hrs. Not sure what you mean on that. Now if they screwed up pay that’s another thing. Which I think this check they missed everyone’s over time.

They have benefits but they’re not great at all. My wife definitely has better benefits and I’m on hers.

I think the last 2 classes if not the last they sent the CBTs out too late, not sure what office people were doing, GSO has been just in a scramble since summer began. But they have never required anyone. To have it done before class, not sure what you were told. It’s a very condensed program which I don’t agree completely with their methods.

Their training especially for sims needs a lot of work. Pan-am is terrible, especially in MIA. They don’t teach the procedures in the book and then some of the new FOs get out on line and look confused. They’ve been trying to bring it in house, but obviously through their explosive growth right now they haven’t been able to do anything with it. Wish they would go with Boeing or finally stop and just hire their own instructors.

They have a lot of new people scheduling and I don’t think they understand 117 to save their life. All the good schedulers are gone. Like any airline don’t let them coerce you to break an FAR. It’ll come back on you. Just say no. Blue one is definitely a joke, they spent money on something that doesn’t really help at all. In fact provides less info than what they had before. You complete a flight and it’s gone. Vacation bidding is another hectic piece.

Summer at Swift is always hectic, you bid something and you end up completely doing something else, nothing new there. Difference this year is their lack of oversight with everything going on at once has bit them hard in Europe. They had time to fix it and didn’t do it in time.

I hope now that summer winds they can get their crap together. Looks like CLE and STL are being consolidated into VIP home basing.
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Old 08-13-2018, 01:56 PM
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I overheard that the former head of pilot recruiting, whom was a full-time Captain at Swift Air is now recruiting and flying as a "contractor" at Swift while flying as a F/O for Endeavor. Is there any truth to this? And if this is true what does it say about Swift?
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Old 08-13-2018, 03:27 PM
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Originally Posted by Justsaying View Post
I overheard that the former head of pilot recruiting, whom was a full-time Captain at Swift Air is now recruiting and flying as a "contractor" at Swift while flying as a F/O for Endeavor. Is there any truth to this? And if this is true what does it say about Swift?


Nope recruiting has been taken over by someone else as mentioned above. What pilot works for free? Much less working for another carrier it’s a conflict of interest. How can you recruit and tell someone to come to swift and work somewhere else, makes no sense to me. That’s like working at McDonald’s and recruiting for Wendy’s. Otherwise if it’s so great why leave right?

Nothing wrong with contracting part 91 or doing ground or sim instruction. What you are referring to is Day rate. Which is a swift thing. There’s about 8 day rate pilots, including one that just retired due to age 65. You can do any kind of 91 flying, Mtc, repo, delivery, ferry, flight instructor, sim instruction. as long as it’s not interfering with 117 rules or part 135 rest rules. Many pilots work at delta, AA, UA and teach at CAE, flight safety, FTI, Boeing pan-am. Hell one of the pilot examiners at pan-am is a spirit FO.

Know some TSA pilots that do plane repos on the 145 to Africa. Whatever pays the bills. Wish I could find side gigs like that.
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Old 08-14-2018, 05:23 PM
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Default Swift air recruiting

HELLO

To begin I want to say that I take great pride in giving every bit of FACTUAL information to anyone who inquires with Swift Air. I never lied once to anyone who has spoke to me about employment and am sure to include an information sheet with every initial email or follow up email to make sure people have the basics in hand to review. I care about the people lives that I effect! I want people to be happy with their choices and truly do my best to help. So its upsetting for someone to say that I have lied.

Secondly I can understand the frustration with much of what is going on. For reasons only known to the company...they have decided to make many of the last couple classes TDY Home based while they complete a base bid. I was not made aware that was going to happen. As far as future classes they should all be placed as normal. The fact sheet that I give clearly states pay, training pay, schedule, basing, etc.

On the professional side of things...I would have and will gladly speak to you at any time and try to explain or rectify any issues. Things are falling back into place finally after our last expansion. And for anyone who has questions or even just wants to talk. Please feel free to email me at rcostanzawatts@flyswiftair. And anyone who has already emailed me has my phone number.
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Old 08-16-2018, 08:27 AM
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Originally Posted by Justsaying View Post
I overheard that the former head of pilot recruiting, whom was a full-time Captain at Swift Air is now recruiting and flying as a "contractor" at Swift while flying as a F/O for Endeavor. Is there any truth to this? And if this is true what does it say about Swift?
Who you are talking about is very active in the Swift Air posts on this forum and knows very well that a company like Endeavor is probably very against their pilots flying on behalf of another certificate holder in their free time, regardless if it's part 91.

It's still conducting flights on behalf of a certificate holder. One thing is to casually take out your 172 or do some flight instructing on the side, but getting paid to repo a 737 on behalf of an airline is another story.

By all means, if it's approved by the Endeavor Chief Pilot then great, but I've never heard of an airline that allows one of their pilots to also be employed at another airline.

The last schedule sent out to the pilot group has this captain still employed at Swift as a day rate captain with a flying assignment for this month.

I'm telling you... the more threads you start pulling at this place the more horrors that unravel. It sure says something when full time captains at Swift are actively leaving to join the regionals.
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Old 08-16-2018, 10:47 AM
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Originally Posted by onemoretogo View Post
In the past 2 months we’ve had a tail strike, a plane land long and go off a runway, and a crew almost take off from a taxi way in EWR. If these facts don’t say something about the training and standardization of Swift Air I don’t know how else to prove my point. Unfortunately, these are the only public incidents, only God knows what other incidents happened that Swift was able to hide under the rug.
You indicate that safety is the big concern, but most of your concerns are not safety, but other things.

Pilots who land too far down the runway, strike the tail and take off from taxiways cannot blame the training department.

If they do, they've got no business accepting the responsibility of pilot in command.
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Old 08-16-2018, 11:17 AM
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Originally Posted by JohnBurke View Post
You indicate that safety is the big concern, but most of your concerns are not safety, but other things.



Pilots who land too far down the runway, strike the tail and take off from taxiways cannot blame the training department.



If they do, they've got no business accepting the responsibility of pilot in command.


All these incidents I think are more pilot caused as he mentions, going around would probably have prevented these incidents. But then again I don’t know what the outcome or what investigation has come across except for what pictures and video speak of. The take off well I don’t know happened to comair years ago.

Doesn’t matter where people go after Swift that’s their deal, regionals, retire, part 135. That’s their business. Doesn’t work for everyone. Hell one guy left to the regionals and came right back not even a week after he left.

They know what they have to do to keep people around, they truly have hit the lowest point in their time. The cracks are definitely showing, but it’s up to management to turn the airline around. It didn’t used to be like this. It was a fun place to work and do cool unique stuff. Unfortunately growing too fast without infrastructure has hit them hard.
Who knows man.
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Old 08-16-2018, 12:35 PM
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It's true that the pilots are bribed to break 117 regs. A couple of them were recently paid $5000 apiece for a simple out and back trip which Crew Scheduling had "overlooked" and failed to crew. This is not an isolated incident. Juicy pickings if you're not picky.
It's also true that pilots are misled when they are recruited in order to get them on board and then the reality is laid on them when they get on line. Bait and switch.
its true that Management look at pilot staffing hugely and I mean HUGELY optimistically because they are looking at an unrealistic bottom line. This artificially creates a shortage and the necessity to bribe, cajole and threaten crew members into illegal activities.
Its also true that management have instructed their sales department to never turn down a charter, regardless of how impractical it might be or how it might affect crew members, their schedules or even the satisfaction of the clients who might be expecting a VIP configured airplane only to be presented with a Hi density airplane that has been used to deport illegal aliens to Central America.
It's true that it's not unusual for Swift to carry Illegals with Leprosy for example or Plague. I will leave it to your imagination what sort of disinfecting process the airplanes go through afterwards...read Chlorox wipes.
It is true that the payroll department rely on the hugely overworked and corrupt Crew Scheduler for the required information to pay the pilots correctly, so the chances of being paid the right mount for the work you've done are woefully small.
It is also true that the pilots are paid on the basis of a completely fictitious 40 hour work week. Flight time is never shown or accounted for which makes payroll queries very difficult to substantiate. Not to mention the fluidity of the bribe system... Cash is king.
It is true that if you submit a query to the crew scheduler you will not get a reply. Ever. Unless you involve the director of operations, in which case you may get a reply, but no action. So frustrating.
It is true that the same goes for payroll. No reply is the way Swift does business.
It is true that nepotism, favoritism and passive aggression are the ways that Swift play.
I called the chief pilot once with a problem. I never called him again.
Peter Panam is offline  
Old 08-16-2018, 01:24 PM
  #10  
Gets Weekends Off
 
Joined APC: Dec 2008
Posts: 896
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David Speaks was fired from Mesa for questionable reasons. He then was hired by pilot hater B Gray at ABX. Speaks attempted to destroy our CBA by his arbitrary scheduling practices. Speaks cost ABX millions in attorney fees for grievances and arbitrations. Ask him why he left and he will deny getting fired....but witnesses in management cut ties with his ethics because the cesspool was backing up on them. You guys have a true winner at Swift.
motorclutch is offline  
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