AirBear

My neighbor is a Regional Airline F/O currently in upgrade training for Captain. He already has a Delta Interview scheduled in June, and at the WIA conference UAL told him soon as got a "little" time as PIC they'd interview him. His background is a Bachelor's degree and a Certified Financial Advisor/Planner or something like that. He went into flying and did the standard Flight School, CFI, then to the Regional. The point is if you're a few hundred short of upgrade then you should soon be competitive for a legacy carrier if that's what you want. But if you hate commuting, sitting reserve, etc. then a Fractional is a good option. Take a look at Fly Exclusive based in Kinston, NC. A buddy of mine went there after hitting age 65 at American. I saw him a few months ago and he likes it there. There's a lot of info on them in the Part 135 forum. They have ordered a lot of jets to use for Fractional Ops.

Highflying24

What are the salary’s for both companies? Is this fourm right on what it says the pay is? I talked to a pilot today for flex jet, he’s been there around 4 years and I thought he said he made 320k a year, but not sure if I heard him wrong. What is the top out pay, do y’all think it will continue to increase in order to get to the top legacy airline pay?

Is the QOL at home that much better then it is at the airlines? It seems pretty great that you get all the points for the airlines and hotels. So you can take many vacations, vs being at the airlines and hoping to be able to non rev flight for you and your family, but considering there isn’t many empty seats now, it could be hard to do.

Last questions, I spoke with some Flex jet pilots at my local airport (super small one), they were passing through, heading towards Naples. They answered a lot of my questions but there was one I forgot. I understand you can live anywhere in the world and commute the day of your trip, but how does bases work? Are they based off seniority? If I live in Florida and y’all have a Florida base, does that mean that’s the base I get or are they based off seniority? Also, if you live in base, or within a couple hours of it, and never have to Commute, VIA airline, which in returns mean you don’t get airline points for free flights with the family, do they get some kind of other points or a way of getting points considering the company doesn’t have to pay for there flights to work considering there within driving distances?

TeamSasquatch

At NetJets, you can pick any base on the crew base list, and change it every 7 days (some limits apply). Seniority is not required to hold the base. First year min guarantee is ~$70k, but $100k is doable with the FDP bonus.

Points and airline miles are nice, but it’s not worth a lot. Maybe 10-15 free hotel rooms a year and 100,000 airline miles spread out between 5 airlines (status helps to multiply the points).

That being said, not taking an airline day 1 and just going to the jet, could work out to much more pay in FDP…. This income would substantially offset the value of the points.

FlyAbove

Year 1 at Flexjet is $100k and year 4 is about $175k to $185k. Year 22ish is around $295k. No it will never top out to match top level airline pay. You cannot live anywhere in the world. There is 100 bases to pick from and you have to basically live within 90 minutes of one of the pre determined bases. Do some research you’ll be able to answer a lot of your own questions.

https://www.flexjet.com/careers/pilots/

TexasLonghorn

Year 4 pay at Flexjet will not be anything close to 320K for 99% of our pilots. You can achieve probably 240k in total compensation but that number would include per diem 401k and bonuses. Salary would be about 180k at year 4 if you've made DRL which is possible now.

jtf560

I can't tell you what is real at Flex, but 320K year 4 doesn't sound likely. If it is real, that is awesome and hopefully everybody can get drug up to that by year 4. Pay at almost everywhere will need to continue up to continue to attract and retain pilots. Continuing up to equal or beat legacy pay is unlikely for anyone not working less that 75 to 80% of their days overall.

QOL at home being better than the airlines is also extremely unlikely outside of being able to be based at many more places regardless of seniority. If you want a 7&7 schedule for QOL, that is available to all outside of training and new fleets with less than 10 airplanes or 2 years in the system at NetJets. The 52 day schedule (13 days a month not including vacation or sick days) is available to some rather junior pilots at NetJets. That said, the 7&7 and 52 day schedules pay considerably less than the 72 or 76. The fractionals can pay a lot, but usually at the cost of a lot of extra days and typically with a lot of years of service. It is true that the fractionals allow you to keep your airline and hotel points, but even those have been massively deflated in value over the last decade or so.

As far as living anywhere in the world, I guess it is technically possible with NetJets, but you still have to have a base located in the lower 48 states that you will have to report to by the beginning of duty on your first day. There are definitely some that live outside of CONUS, but that isn't their base and they are responsible to report to there actual base at their showtime. You are allowed to "dummy ticket" home, but that just means that the company will reimburse up to 90% of the cost that they would have paid to get you to you current CONUS base on your last day of work. I don't know how it works at Flex. NetJets doesn't give you anything more if they figure out how to be more efficient to the point that you don't have to airline or other travel to or from the airplane that you are assigned to.

The fractionals can be a pretty good job if your personal situation requires the ability to live many places without a non work day commute or if you need a 7&7 schedule and/ or 21 days in a row or more for a single vacation, but I think you have probably gotten a very inflated and probably not realistic view of what is possible at the fractionals with very little seniority/ time on property.

Flugzeug

Reading through both of the forums for Net and Flex - it seems like the general consensus has always been Netjets over Flexjet. That said, the Netjets forum has started to portray quite a bit of negativity while the Flexjet forum seems to be mostly positive with people providing helpful information in regard to what it's like to work there. So, is Flexjet become a better place to work than Netjets? Additionally, is Flexjet's PBS system and schedules superior to the schedules that Netjets has to offer? Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated, thanks.

Das Auto

The problem is, most of the people who post on the NetJets forum don't work at NetJets and haven't worked there in a long time. I think most people would agree that if you want to persue a career in the fractional world, NetJets would be the first choice with Flex a close second. Insurance, schedules, long term compensation and financial stability give NetJets the edge over Flex, but the upgrade time is shorter at Flex.

cons

Does Flexjet even have a union or a contract?

jtf560

I have no idea what it is like to work at Flex and haven't followed what is going in over there. At NetJets people are getting antsy for a new contract with much more pay. At the same time, the company is doing a bad job getting us crew food when and where we need it, and most of the crew food quality has also suffered. Being run hard and not being adequately supported is starting to get to more and more pilots. For the most part the debate should be more for NetJets OR Flex vs the regional or better airlines and cargo since this is the best time any of us will ever see to get on at those places. Any fractional will always kinda suck, but for the few that just won't be able to have a reasonable commute, I can't imagine any place that anyone would want a career at would beat NJA on this side of the job world. The newer hires are mostly complaining about FDP not being what they were promised or expected while the pilots who have been here for while are angry that the support level we were used to is just not there.