I think your expectations were set too high. Compass is a wholly owned regional airline, not Southwest. From my experiences it's a whole lot better than my last wholly owned regional airline and probably a whole lot worse than Southwest.

 

One thing VERY encouraging about Compass is that I'm not hearing any serious complaining about it.. nothing along what you hear about Pinnacle.. Sounds like guys are happy. I can only hope that those happy guys are so beat down that they don't know better.. but happy nevertheless.

 

Everybody well almost everybody is happy because so far it is better than the their last airline. I have flown with A LOT of Comair, Mesa, Eagle, Horizon guys and almost all of them were on reserve or had a horrible schedule for a long time. Most new hires that finish IOE are getting decent lines with no reserve.
Another vacancy came out for 11 more CA

 

I am curious only and not trying to start a fight with you. I just have to ask. What planet have you been living on? With all of the airlines that have closed this year and Frontier, Spirit, Freedom, Mesa, AirMidwest possibly going out soon, along with slow downs in hiring at even the large commuters you believe that it would be prudent to walk away from one of the only commuters who might have an actual flow through in the next 2 years? In case you haven't noticed things are a bit rough out here. I know that you can easily make more money at Lowes or Home Depot but what if you really like flying?

 

Thanks for the info. Have the 18 aircraft that you have mentioned been assigned to any of the commuters yet? If the 18 or a portion of the 18 would go to Compass would that then not speed up the upgrades? One last question if anybody knows, what is the crew staffing per aircraft at Compass?

 

10 crews per plane. Right now we are getting more planes than people finishing training so we are a little short on crews. But they are projecting 36 planes by the end of the year. About 15 managment pilots on the seniority list with 360 line pilots will come out to about 380 pilots. Now the trick is can they hire enough to fill the slots by December? We shall see.

As for the extra airplanes, there are rumors flying around everywhere. The fact is, obviously if we pick up another 18 planes, we will need another 180 pilots. Until it is a done deal, you'll hear the rumors and they dont really mean anything.

I can also confirm (from someones previous post) the lack of negativity at Compass, most guys are happier here than their last airline. I havent had any problems, I dont know who these people are who are posting negative comments about the company, but if you want to find out the truth speak to a Compass pilot.

 

I see your point and I have also met pilots from Mesa and others who have come to my airline after a couple of years, but, I have to tell you you can't count on the flowthrough thing. I just attended a joint NWA/DAL presentation on the merger and how it will affect them, and the NWA representative said the flowthrough has not been negotiated yet so it may or may not stay after the merger, can't say for sure.

 

The scope Delta has in LOA 19 limits all regional jets with 70/76 seats to a total of 255 airframes. This includes all DL and NW regional flying. It also grandfathers in the 36 airplanes (part of the 255,) that Compass has over the GW limit, meaning that if Compass gets any more beyond the original 36, they have to be the smaller 76 seaters.I wouldn't expect anything looser than that to come out of the joint contract talks, maybe something even more restrictive.

 

I can also confirm (from someones previous post) the lack of negativity at Compass, most guys are happier here than their last airline. I havent had any problems, I dont know who these people are who are posting negative comments about the company, but if you want to find out the truth speak to a Compass pilot.[/quote]

Thanks. Kind of refreshing to hear that someone is not bitter with their job.

 

Well, it's pretty tough to be bitter when you're only on reserve for 2 weeks, a senior FO in 3 months, and a Captain by 6 mos. Once the growth stops and stagnation sets in I think you'll find about the same amount of bitterness here as the average regional. We do, after all, have redtail management, and once average longevity starts increasing they're going to be under a lot of pressure to keep costs flat.