Diesel8

Commuting for Part 135/91K is typically on your first and last day of your rotation. Rotations are typically 8/6 or 15/13. There are others as well, these two are pretty common. Be aware that some operators will hook you with that schedule but then inform you that you will commute on your days off.

A predominate amount of 135/91K trips in small jets/aircraft are heavily concentrated and more East Coast centric. There are some more local operators to the West Coast. My experience has been that there are not many, and typically with them you would have to reside at their base. West Coast operations are most commonly to about 25-35 different airports, where in the East there is a lot more variation.

I have worked for both residing at that base and being home based. I worked at one that was more West Coast oriented, but based at home.

When it comes to the commute count on doing coast to coast positioning. If you get less than that, to your benefit. Typically most operators want you to commute in and work a flight upon your arrival. Obviously if your commuting across country this can be a physically impossible. Just understand that you might get to the hotel at 2300 and have an early morning departure. On the flip side when your working on your last day they will try to pack as many legs in as they can before they send you home. You can very easily be forced into performing a 24 hour day, where you don't get home till when you got up the previous day - especially if you live on the West Coast and started your day on the East Coast. Just be aware of these things, and as always YMMV.

B727DRVR

Great explaination, Diesel,

But the quality Part 135 operators don’t bait and switch, and they travel you on Day 1 and return you home on go home day. It’s true that you may fly on those days, but I also often get to go out a day late or get home a day early. We have pilots who live in SAN, DHN, BIL, & Lake of the Ozarks.. At at the Women in Aviation Conference, there were pilots form everywhere talking with Volato. Again, nice folks.

AirBear

I have no idea how bad the damage is but a Volato HondaJet went off the runway at Buena Vista, Colorado. Tail number 118CX, one pilot and one pax on board:

https://www.asias.faa.gov/apex/f?p=1...ource=hs_email

Flightsoffusion

Wondering if anyone knows the policy on upgrades at Volato.
Is it based on seniority,merit? How about average time to the left seat, say in the Honda Jet?
Is 1000ME still the hard number for upgrade once working there?

Thank you in advance..

MrWizard

3000 hrs minimum TT per insurance for PIC
500 ME jet is the preferred.

There is no official seniority list since it is non-union, but of course in any benevolent company those that are employed longer get first look. It's entirely merit-based though.

If you fly all your rotations, you'll average out to about 20 hours per eight day cycle. You may fly on day one or eight, if it's operationally efficient.

So you may accumulate about 500 hours per year.

No 91K ops, all 135. Some empty repositions, mx hops, etc. are flown 91. But not 91K. All revenue flights are 135.

Training is conducted within your on duty footprint, no trips to the schoolhouse on your off time, unless mutually agreed. It is salary, after all, not hourly pay. So if you agree to go training on an off week, expect to negotiate the time to drop as compensation.

Company self-limits and plans for 12 hour duty days maximum. If you do some sleuthing on Flightware etc for TMB planes, you can reconstruct typical duty days of specific aircraft and you will see average duty day is well under that limit.

AirBear

Is the 3000 hours because they fly single pilot? The runway excursion accident I posted earlier showed 1 pilot and 1 pax.

MrWizard

Volato does not fly single pilot for revenue flights. OpSpecs and GOM require two. All I can tell you about AEJ is, publicly posted information is frequently incorrect.

Kinda like this forum. :-)

Postal2002

Don't bother. They'll string you along for at least 4-5 months. Their training pipeline is backlogged but it doesn't stop them from taking applications, conducting interviews, and then blatantly misleading pilots. I have over 5000 hours multi jet and turboprop with international flying experience and am a former Air Force pilot. They were excited to hire me then proceeded to ignore me after they promised an offer letter and to begin training in two months. Furthermore they will not update you as to the timeline of when you'll get an official offer or begin training. But they will tell you that you're hired. Seems they want to keep as many pilots in a holding pattern as they can until they can get them to training. If you can wait several months without any updates then go ahead and apply.

friend

Hi All

i have a interview coming up I live in Oakland California area and apply for the
first Officer Honda jet position and home base

I would hate to commute to east coast, do you think I can do mostly west coast flying
how’s the company culture. How’s the training how long is it, the pay is okay 75k first year
and they have a one year contract

Should I really apply for this company and advice woiuld
be great

dfrenchbk

I applied in June - got a "congratulations" offer email that I was hired for a Captain position on the HondaJet - but like the previous gentleman stated, never got a training date. I inquired after a month and they said it was TBA, as there was a training backlog. I emailed them last week, as I have since been hired by another company, telling them I was not interested. I got no reply from that email either, for what its worth.