I started in late March and will finish the first week of June. No repeated lessons, no sick calls or any other delays. The longest break I have had is 5 days. It has been pretty bang bang.

I'm in the 900. I have ran into 200 guys from January who are at the same level, who had huge breaks in training due to scheduling.

Congrats on getting into training before the slowdown! :D

How are you liking it?

+1 to what Jules said, the 900 footprint is pretty smooth right now (knock on wood).

Most of the 200 new hires right now are about 2 weeks behind the 900s in the same classes. But I have bumped into a few 200 guys where there's more separation than that.

Well he has excellent classmates...how could he not like it?

It is too long, even with minimum delays. Ups and downs in training. Overall, good instructors and good training though. The training material is kind of a mess, because they are in the process of changing it.

For example, the study guide they give you during systems came from Mesaba, and the new systems manual doesn't have about 75% of the information you need. Most of the class got the answers from Quizlet, as it was no where to be found in the company documents.

They seem to genuinely care about you and your situation. We have been told multiple times it is OK to have to repeat a lesson, even though I haven't had to.

The training schedulers have been pretty great. I have been have to positive space to home and back quite a bit, which definitely helps the home situation.

Not sure what may have changed, but 100% of the test material came from the study guide and class. I never used quizlet, wouldn’t trust it personally. I think I made a 96%, but we had a 98% and 100% as well. Using nothing but company manuals, our class easily passed training, both open and closed book tests.

Totally agree. Went thru last summer and the ones who had problems relied on quizlet or their previous company’s training. At least you have a 900 CFM and SM now. Last summer we were using 200 manuals that had a 900 differences section. Getting training courseware caught up is always a challenge.

I became good friends with the systems manual (am currently trying to retain that friendship), and there were some questions in the homework book that were not addressed in the systems manual. That's where the trustworthy quizlet was helpful for study at the hotel after class, we could cross check it with the info that was in the systems manual. Personally the questions in the homework book helped me a lot with concept learning, and we could double check the info in class the next day with the instructors. Everyone in our class passed, and I felt we were adequately prepared.

And darn, I wish I could say I got the elusive 100 on the systems test...but alas, I fell short :D

Apparently, the systems manual just went through some drastic changes this year. They changed it to make it more in line with the 200 manual, and never updated the study guide to reflect it. There was flat out contradictory material as well. With that said, everyone in our class passed the systems test.

So essentially, the Mesaba study guide had a lot of questions that simply weren't in the systems manual.

Wow, sounds like it's moving along fast. I had a few two week breaks in mine.

I'm an early November hire and I just got off OE this past week. Some of my classmates finished much earlier and others are still on OE now as we speak. There was a major slowdown a few months ago that jammed up the training department and depending on your luck and when you needed to get on the sim schedule the delay hit you hard or barely affected your footprint. I had classmates breeze thru sims in a month.... meanwhile I sat at home for an entire month (twice) due to a equipment breakdown that put me in the back of the line for the next open sim slot. Word on the street is that log jam is now around the OE stage as the early wave of holdups are now in that stage of training (at least on the 200 side) and the sims/FTD delays of the past have now cleared up.