Quote:
Originally Posted by echelon
I'll just throw this out there for what it's worth as well (and probably not much, it's second hand as I don't work there):
I had a GoJet guy in the jumpseat last week who mentioned the upgrade pass rate there is a little over 50%, aka, abysmal. If there's a place to go with quality training where you can become adequately prepared to upgrade at 1001 SIC, I wouldn't bet my career on it being Gojet.
I've researched on this site for years and I've gleaned some useful tidbits of information so I'll try to return the favor now-
I recently completed training at GoJets as a direct entry captain. My background is about 6000 total time of which about 4500 flight hours of which is part-121. I was a Saab-340 captain for a couple years at Mesaba and a FO there and two other regionals, plus did some cargo stuff, instructing, etc. The last three years I've been doing single pilot government flying. Anyway, I've done about 8 years of part-121 flying of which the most recent was about 4 years ago. So, a deep well of experience, perfect record, two masters degrees, etc... but out of the airline game for a bit.
I've been through 5 part-121 6-9 week initial training events, if you count upgrade (they used to send you back through the full course). These would have been about 1998, 2001, 2008, 2011, 2013. I can tell you that in the big picture they are all pretty much the same. You have some better or worse instructors at all airlines. You always have some disconnect between the company training and Flight Safety training. There's always hotel issues, transportation issues, etc. I don't think GoJet is any worse than any other regional in this regard. I wouldn't worry about that. And they do seem to try and correct those issues as much as a regional's budget and manpower allows for. But, it is true, from what I've seen and heard, that their pass rate isn't the best. Recently I think DECs have been failing at a rate of about 50-70%. I myself failed my first checkride before even leaving the gate. Let me tell you it's not easy to re-focus after that! And I was angry and felt let down for a while. But, getting a new type and becoming captain all at once is a huge challenge. I got through though, (although no longer with an unblemished record).
Why the failure rate? In my case it was a few minor things that were missed in training. That company/Flight Safety/checkairman disconnect thing. I also think that DECs come in with a target on their back and are given less leeway. Maybe that should be the case, but I also think that training should be more tailored to meet their needs then. In my case I think it would of been useful to spend some time on ground procedures and I could of gotten by with less time shooting approaches. But, you also have a sim partner (most likely no former part-121 experience) and they need the time doing approaches, etc. So you're kind of stuck with that system. In the case of other DECs and first officers it could be other things. I think that generally speaking GoJet is getting guys with a lot of experience, but they are also getting a lot of pilots who have never flown part-121 or in a crew environment, and pilots that have not flown in a long time. There's some of that that can be made up/caught up, but some guys are just too old and/or been out too long. Personally I think the current pilot hiring pool has a lot more maturity and judgement than in the past, but at a certain point it just becomes too time consuming to teach old dogs new tricks. So, in a nutshell, unless you're 60 years old and all you ever did was flight instruct, or you're coming in as a DEC, then I don't think you need to be spooked by the pass/failure rate.
I hope that helped.
As far as the company- I've read bad press about GoJets for years and I too was weary about coming here. I haven't been here long, so take this for what it's worth, but I don't think it's anywhere close to as bad as I've read about. Maybe things have changed? Maybe supply and demand has forced it to change? Maybe there's just a lot of old haters on APC? I don't know. But I've experienced worse than GoJets at other regionals. Maybe it's apples to oranges comparing past environments to the current one however. The pilot market and times have changed. My overall impression of the company as a whole is that there's a lot of youthful energy (something definately lacking in my government flying job). It's kind of a bare bones operation, but there's a lot of movement and opportunity. If you're motivated you can move up fast and do what you want to do. It reminds me a lot of UFS, which was also a Trans States Holdings company. I started there as a ramp agent in 1993 (worked there while I flight instructed part time). Within 4 months I was promoted to supervisor. Had I not gone to fly for Mesaba I could of been a base manager by about the time I left. It was just a feeling of constant movement and opportunity, which has been missing in this industry for a long time.
02-25-2024