You do have to get your Indian license for this (and almost all other Indian jobs) don't you? I have some students converting their US license to an Indian license and it doesn't sound easy nor speedy.

 

Not as a contract pilot.. there are some minor tests to take but there is no requirement to convert to a new license such as with JAA.. Some countries like China and have slightly more painful conversion tests, and some like Australia are borderline crazy.. but India is not so bad.

 

Why is my number fuzzy? FYI, your calculations are skewed a little because no one at Compass is eligible for flowthru right now whereas at Mesaba 14 has already flowed thru. Plus if the flowthru stays after the merger, 9 pilots per month from Mesaba flows up to NWA. There are no provisions that excludes Mesaba pilots from flowing up until after 20 Compass pilot flows up. At any case I seriously doubt the flowthru will remain intact after the merger, but you never know, anything can happen.

If seniority is an issue, you have to pick an airline that will continue to grow. Mesaba is planning to hire another 350 pilots in 2008. How many is Compass planning to hire in 2008 and beyond? At best Compass will hire another 70 to 80 pilots total. This will fully staff for 36 aircraft. Further options for 18 aircraft has not been announced by NWA and it is doubtful it ever will after the merger. That means no further growth for Compass, whereas if you start out at Mesaba right now, by the end of this year, you will have 350 pilots below you in seniority. That's a better cushion than having 70 pilots below you.

 

You can't be a 4th year FO at Mesaba unless you refuse to upgrade. Right now upgrade into Saabs are less than 6 months and Saab CA makes $43/hr. Your comparisons makes no sense at all. You have to start at first year pay and even on this Mesaba is ahead. Plus, Compass does not pay for lodging during ground school whereas, Mesaba pays for single occupancy hotel room for your entire stay in Minneapolis and during your sim training. CRJ200s are coming to Mesaba even as we speak and Mesaba has around 12 CRJ200s already and they are here to stay until NWA decides to replace DC9s with 100 seat mainline jets, in which case Compass will also lose E175s along with CRJ200s. This is not some conjecture, I just returned from a FLTops Pilot conference during which NWA and DAL representative made a joint presentation on what their future plans are.

 

So for someone hired with seniority 1000 upgrade is at 6 months? I dont expect that stay around to long.


Compass does not pay for lodging in MSP for an entire 4 days, When you are in YUL for the 35-40 days your are getting a single occupancy hotel and 24/7 per diem.

Everything will change, hell by next year we will all be wearing the same uniform

What did the NWA and DAL presentation say?

 

At the outset, let me say that I like Compass as Compass had offered me a job last year but I turned them down because I had already gone through a training with Mesaba. You are right about us wearing same uniforms by next year, though. The Mesaba Compass Holding Corporation will eventually take over all management of Mesaba and Compass operations. This info was from a NWA employee who was setting up operations for Compass. The NWA/DAL presentation was given by DAL pilot manager and NWA rep and they presented the present status such as NWA has 8 regionals flying for them and that will surely decrease in number drastically.

NWA/DAL is looking for 100 seat mainline jets to replace less fuel efficient DC9s, MD80s and A319/320s, but at present they are not available at a "reasonable price." Many of us gathered from this presentation that 50 seat RJs will surely go first so after Mesaba has 17 CRJ200s, Mesaba will probably not receive any more CRJ200s. For now, it seems Mesaba and Compass will do just fine with E175s and CRJ900s. The options for 18 additional aircraft has not been exercised. Either Compass or Mesaba will get those depending on what NWA management decides. In fact, NWA has options for more than 18 aircraft but that seems unlikely now with the fuel price soaring.

The NWA rep in response to a question about flowthrough, stated that both Mesaba and Compass has the flowthrough agreement with NWA and that 14 Mesaba pilots have so far flowed up to NWA and no one from Compass has flowed up yet because of the 30month requirement. Whether it will remain after the merger, he said, needs to be negotiated and he could not answer whether it will remain intact or not. This is not a priority agenda on their table, it seems.

E175 seems more comfortable and has autothrottle which the CRJ900 does not have. CRJ900 is fairly fuel efficient and fast but narrow in the cabin, which in my opinion is a drawback but passengers seems to like it and as you know price is everything nowadays. My take is that NWA will continue to operate E175s and CRJ900s for now. I noticed that both Compass and Mesaba are getting new cities every month. If I am not mistaken Compass will start flying to Monterey Mexico starting June, and Mesaba will start flying to Denver in June along with 4 other new cities.

 

Oh really? Well then can I forward that quote to the management at Mesaba and Compass with your name attached? Id love to see the looks on both of their faces when they read it.

 

Mesaba Compass Holding Corporation is already doing the IT work for both companies, they already have the MCH id's I've seen at the Pan Am training center.

 

Are you sure upgrades are still 6 months? Just looking at the way things look now I'd say if you were hired now you are looking at a time frame of years instead of months. There haven't been upgrades since last year and with 500 FO's all slowly building time toward an upgrade, I'd say if you were hired now - best case scenario the way things stand right now would be under 2 years. What few captain slots open up are going to be snatched up real quick real high up the list. Those last few street captains hired are going to be sitting reserve a real long time.

As for hiring 300 more pilots this year - is this still going to happen? The hiring has slowed to a trickle and 300 sounds like a lot of people to hire under 5 months (being as all classes are rumored to have been pushed back to August).

 

If there is already 1056 pilots on the seniority list, how do you come up with the 350 more pilots in 2008? Is there a lot of attrition at Mesaba?

There is nothing in your flow up/down agreement that prevents the 9 mesaba pilots from going before Compass but there is in ours:

Compass Airlines pilots will be offered employment at Northwest Airlines before any other Northwest Airlines Affiliate Carrier or new hires from the street directly to Northwest Airlines.
a. Offers to flow up will be in seniority order, provided that, in order to be eligible to flow up a pilot, must:
(1) Be a captain, and
(2) Have at least thirty (30) months on payroll at Compass Airlines (see Sections 7 A. and 14 A.1.c. for definition of “on payroll”; for purposes of this paragraph 22 D.3., a pilot shall be deemed to be on payroll while on military leave).
b. The maximum number of Compass pilots flowing up to Northwest shall be:
(1) twenty-five percent (25%) of the total pilot group over a rolling twelve (12) month period, and
(2) No more than twenty (20) pilots per month.

Like you said, the flow agreement will have to find its way into the new mainline contract. Back in March (I think) when there was a combined agreement ready to go, the XJ & CP flow agreements were in tact as is.

I know you are happy about the growth that XJ has been experiencing but they only need so many Captains and from what I have heard they already have just under 500 Captains on the list. Even with 5.5 Captains per plane they would only need 560 or so and 1100 to 1200 total pilots. I guess I don't see how it's revelvant to say upgrades are running 6 months. How many pilots did XJ have 6 months ago when those people were hired? Someone offered employment now would prabably not even be in class until mid summer and would have to move up hundreds of numbers to upgrade.