ExpressJet life
 

With an interview with ASA in the future, and the possibility of being placed into a ERJ pool with xj, Just wondering about a few things...

Days off on reserve?

Min days off in a row guaranteed?

Flight benefits? -- Totally free for immediate family similar to DL's?

I know it sounds picky considering I haven't even been offered a job yet, but I currently have another career path going and am only considering going back to flying if certain conditions exist. The most important.. QOL. I am furloughed Comair so I am familiar with the basics of regional flying, I just wondered about the "good stuff". What is the "good stuff" about xj?

Days off on reserve: 11 in a 30 day month, 12 in a 31 day month. Minimum of two days off between reserve days. All lineholders have a 12 day off minimum. As far as regionals go, XJT has some of the best work rules and vacation.

Flight benefits will be changing, so it's pointless to discuss them at this point. I expect they will be going downhill from what we currently have. They were never as good as DL benefits.

Question on flight bennies.

Do asa/expressjet pilots get flight benefits on skywest?

EXCEPT during a month to month transition, where 6 on 1 off 6 on is possible.

I may be wrong, but I don't think so. In the past this would have been possible with paper passes but the problem today is that everything is electronic and all SKW (AND XJT/ASA) flight reservations/ticketing/boarding passes are done using a major partners own reservation system. Basically you need to an eligible nonrev in the system under which the flight is operated, and each major has their own rules about who they will allow.

DAL for example is not going to allow SKW add an XJT pilot who works in the UA/CAL system to the DAL nonrev system.

You should have JS priority ahead of all other carriers except SKW (You will be equal with ASA).

Very true....I forgot to mention that is one of the BIGGEST holes in our contract. I've been hosed by that quite a few times.

Anybody know how long new hires will be seatlocked in the 145?

Say a new hire is from ATL and wants to get into a crj so he/she can get back to Atlanta. I have heard a year.....is this something they are still working out with the merger?

Ive heard fences of up to two years, but that was third hand. No one knows for sure, an these next few months should answer a lot of questions.

I would seriously look at the industry right now and your options. Does the other path pay more and allow you to be at home more than two days per week? If you're a young guy, this may mean very little right now, but you may end of kicking yourself down the road when your children don't know you're name and you're still slingin' ERJ gear making an ERJ salary. Not to dissrespect anybody (I was an RJ guy for 10 years), but he should look at his options. I know I should have.

You greased it right on the mark. I am in school right now for a career in health care. Likely RN or Physicians Assistant. Both of those careers pay 2x starting out and generally 3-4 day work weeks. I'm not young and I have 2 pre-teen kids. My rational is the possibility of missing out on this "wave" of pilot shortage in the next couple years which may allow me to advance into a major or UPS/FX freight. My problem is a current major shortage of money, and simply missing the smell of jet fuel in the morning. It is important that the conditions of my employment are acceptable to my life. I must commute from FL due to current arrangements and I won't accept something that is going to be damn near a pain in the ass. I am beyond the days of begging for a regional pilot job, accepting whatever is offered, and kissing the soles of the shoes of the people who may hire me. Currently my semester is over until Januaray 10th. After that I have another semester of school. If I am offered something reasonable to start prior to that I MAY accept. However, past Jan 10th I am committed until April.

be a PA hands down

Same here, in fact it's amazing how they can utilize you EVERY one of those 12 duty periods and you won't get anywhere near a 30/7 issue. That's fine, better to be on the road in the hotel as opposed to sitting in the crashpad as a commuter etc, as well as the per diem for meals.

Pretty much all the transition language in our CBA is crap. I wasn't overly impressed with ASA's either.

AWAC's concessionary 2003 easily has the best transition rules that I've seen so far, and mirror my previous employers.

Ah, the old pilot shortage story. This one is as old as Bob Hoover. Does anybody remember a few years ago when the regionals were scrambling to fill seats? There were over 10,000 furloughed FAR121 pilots on the streets at that time. None of them applied to swing gear on a Saab or CRJ900. Why not? They couldn't afford it. The only true shortage was finding pilots willing to fly for $21,000/year. From what I'm seeing, mainline companies will continue to replace mainline aircraft with 70/90 seaters at RJ pay. There will be some hiring - there has to be, but I seriously doubt it will be a huge wave. And I'm still sure we haven't seen the end of consolidation and more importantly the true effects that will follow in the years to come. Just my $0.02.

I know friend. I wish I were young again. All this wouldn't matter so much.

To answer the guy's original question, reserve rules are as mentioned previously. Your largest block of reserve days off are "immovable" or you can designate another block of days off as immovable.

Flight benefits are changing. Right now CAL and UAL are in the process of combining their flight benefits and figuring out where we fit in the grand scheme of the "new" United Express system. I'm not sure how things will shake out for us exactly. As of January we have access to CAL's old benefits and the benefits of other United Express carriers. CAL charges $12.50 per person per segment for domestic coach but you get 12 (i think?) free passes per year. Right now, it sounds like UAL is a flat $50 per person per year for unlimited travel. There are other charges of course, depending on class of travel and international.

Bottom line is this, life isn't too bad here at XJT, especially as a lineholder. Our trip trading, hard lines/no PBS (for now) and vacation rules are some of the best out there as far as scheduling. The transition between months, as mentioned, is very weak and its very easy to get screwed. Reserve has been rough for most in recent memory due to our understaffing by that clown Handley who was brought in just to cut costs and sell us to someone. This is something ASA has committed to fixing in merger. All of our bases are being realigned with the "New United" system so staffing levels are changing across the board with ORD growing quickly while EWR, IAH and CLE shrink. I don't think anyone really knows how things will shake out.

You mentioned that you are locked in to Florida and from what I hear, that commute is going to suck no matter what, even if down the road, you are able to get ATL. Hope this helps with your decision.

Yes, but can he do it earning $23,000/year without having to move into his mom's basement. How many FOs right now are reading this eating mom's lasagna? WAAAAAAY too many I imagine.

No one is disagreeing with you in terms of pay for first year f/o, but in terms of quality of life, we're doing a little better than most at XJT, and because we have the majority vote for the JCBA, we should at least keep what we have post merger.

To the OP:

QOL is good for line holders, and OK for reserves. Average line holder can pull 13-16 days off based on trading, and still hit 100hours pay. Reserves, well, that life sucks everywhere, but our guys have a few good protections, and an aggressive pick up window that works some of the time.

Integration will determine many things, although, it's understood that if you're hired now, you will integrate with everyone hired post August of this year, so you will be at the bottom of the list either way. As I understand it, there will be an equipment lock of 18 months, but don't quote me on this.

Thanks to all of you for answering my questions! For now I am going to the interview and see what happens. If it comes to decisions time, I will have to think seriously about which direction I choose.

The other big one is if you're unused on your last day of Reserve, you are auto-released at 1800, even if you have the 1200-2400 call-out...sometimes enabling a same day commute home.

Here's a tasty little morsel from the ASA contract;

Personally, I like my previous employers better. Auto released at 1700. Granted, an hour isn't that much, but it makes all the difference if there's a flight leaving shortly thereafter and it's the last one home, and scheduling doesn't want to release you.

It doesn't always stop at the regionals. try living in mom's basement eating lasagna with a wife and two kids after being furloughed from a major. Hell i'm earning that $23k/year on unemployment, why go to work to make that.

I would say you're correct in your position. The fact is, regardless of one's viewpoint or perception on their union contract, if you're flying commercially making $44.00/hr, it's 100% totally crap money. Who cares how good your contract is versus another crappy regional. It's like saying, "they get punched in the face twice a day. We only get punched once, so we have it pretty good around here."

Given the choice, I take one punch any day of the millennium. Just saying...

classic argument

With ORD picking up will EWR stay the Junior base (at least that's what it has been from what I've heard), or will that change as well?

I graduated college last May of 2010, and over the last few summers while in College got my licenses from a part 61 guy at my local airport. Cost me about 42k from start to finish, which I got from my Grandpas trust fund. I got a few flying gigs from people my instructor knew starting mid May of this year, I had about 300 hours, I now have 910 TTL, and about 130 ME. I have interviews coming up with AWAC, Eagle, ASA, Commutair, and Great Lakes. I am 22, any advice?

Yes. What ever you do, never mention you had a trust fund.