bases at Netjets
 

How does the basing work? For example, if I am based in BUF and I am beginning 7 on, do I stay at home until they call me or do they send me off somewhere on day 1 and come back on day 7? Will all the bases give me a little more time at home or does that just mean I don't have to commute to work on my own? Hope my question makes sense.
Thanks

Yes, is the answer to all your questions except the first. Sometimes you get lucky and have a "home show" day one. I've been lucky enough to stay home on day 2 once or twice. Most of the time you leave on day one and return day 7. If you live close to a popular airport like LAX, VNY, PBI, or TEB, you will make it home mid tour for a night. There is not really a typical day here. The job is extremely fluid. Some days the schedule will change every 20 minutes and the only commonality with the last version is your name is attached somewhere. I hope that helps.

http://www.netjets.com/NetJets_Pilots/Pilots_Video.asp

You will get a brief on your blackberry the night before that tells you what the plan for tomorrow will be. It will probably change. You will always start and end in BUF. Anything in between will be taken care of by scheduling and travel.

Thanks all.

NJA Bases that offer the most nights at home
 

Does a TEB base make the most sense (other than CMH) to maximize your nights at home?

Lets say that during the interview you dont request any particular base. Would that look extremely favorable in the eyes of the panel? I thought I read somewhere that you can change bases within 30 days. Fact/Fiction.

It won't even come up. With the new contract, bases aren't bid or swapped anymore--you simply tell the company which of the 100 bases you want to use, and give them at least 30 days' notice of any change.

Fact!

One thing about this company and overnights is it is random. You might spend a night in TEB every tour or you might not ever spend the night in TEB, it is very very random. I haven't spent the night in TEB in over 6 months but I have been in HPN about 6 nights in the last two months. PDK/FTY are the places I have been the most in the last two years on the BE-400. CMH will maximize your nights at home because of company recurrent and if you are on an airplane with a sim in CMH, and in a few years most aircraft recurrent will be in CMH. But "mileage will very" and no one will be able to give you advice for sure based on nights at home. Most guys who were TEB based and lived closer to EWR moved to EWR because on the last day you would normally be flown to EWR and have to take a limo to TEB to get your car, thus taking away time at home. My advice is pick the airport closest to your house and if you don't like it you can change it every 30 days until you find what works for you.

How does using sick days affect your schedule? Let's say you scheduled to leave Monday morning for a 7 day tour. You come down with a bad case of the flue and can't fly for a couple of days. Will they send you out for the remaining five days? What if you get sick mid-tour? Do they send you home early? How does this affect your pay?

Ryan

You will most likely be sent out mid tour if you banged in sick at the beginning. I've had two day tours in the past- uncommon, but they will try to use you. If mid tour you have the choice of trying to get better at a hotel and continuing if you do, or going home. If you were on duty at least 4 hours (I'm not sure the exact amount) you don't lose sick time for that day, but every other day you are off will come out of your sick bank.

Thank you for the insight NZ. I appreciate you taking the time.

Is it possible to live in Anchorage and be based out Seattle? I'd assume the commute would be on my own dime. Any thoughts?

yeah I guess you could. I would not want to imagine how much that would cost you. Best of luck. I miss Alaska and if ANC was a base I would be there in a heartbeat

If you wanted to do it, it would be possible, but the commute would indeed be on your dime. By 6pm Pacific (for SEA-based pilots), you'd know what time your showtime is the next day; it could be very early morning, keep in mind. Commuting by air, you'd probably have to come the night before and get a hotel room. At $200-300 a ticket for a one-way, you're looking at a $5000-7000 annual hit, not including any hotel rooms. Just keep that in mind.

But other than the expense, it would be doable. The company doesn't care where you live, only that you make it to work on-time.

As for getting home... Except in pretty rare cases (such as flying a plane to base), your last leg (or only leg) on your last day will be an airline flight home. In those cases, you can call the company, say "scratch the ticket and release me from duty," and get a ticket home (to Anchorage) instead. They'll reimburse you for up to what they would have spent to get you to your base. So at least around half of the commute wouldn't be on your own dime.

I appreciate all the help. I'm trying to plan my retirement from the military. My family and I want to go back home to Anchorage, but I'm not finding too many GV's up there. I'd like to do FedEx out of Anchorage and my commute problem is solved. Thanks again.

Wouldn't hold my breath for Purple anytime soon! ANC or otherwise. 250ish overmanned right now.

As for the other Q's about interviewing and domiciles...the last thing the interviewers care about is where you live or how you get to work. They ARE CONCERNED about what you think of flying OWNERS, not pax/boxes around. This company is on the brink of the next generation of 5 star service. So, those in the que, or waiting to interview, you gotta think bigger! It aint about "will they hire someone out of TEB over BFE" it's about who will be the (1) Safest, and (2) be the best pilot/concierge/NJA rep to the OWNERS, (not customers), who are spending a whole bunch of $! No as@ kissing, but true professional service.
NetJets is not an airline.
It's not run by airline execs.
It's not run on a airline/charter/cargo business model.
It is a professional Berkshire company run like a business out to make it in the long run.
Mr. Santulli started this company over 20 years ago and is still making daily decisions...enough said. Netjets is a career, not a job.

When OEF/OIF kicked off and pilots who were reserve/guard members were activated, if they took a pay cut the company made up the difference on their own. Not because of a contract but because it was the right thing to do.

NJASAP IS ALSO GROUND BREAKING! SINCERE THANKS TO ALL THE TRUE HEROES OUT THERE! WE ARE FREE AT LAST!

Jake has got it exactly right. NJ is great because they have great vision. They take care of their people and those people take CARE of the owners. I was 121 major for over 31 years. Even back before deregulation, we never saw any thing close to this. The difference is like night and day. I like being able to say "yes sir, we can do that" and not have some bean counter deciding that it is too expensive. As long as it is not unsafe or illegal, We will do everything we can to make it happen. "What a Concept!"

Quite right. Well said!

Ok, so you can change bases with a 30 days notice. Can you also change your type of schedule ? 7/7 to 15 or 18 ? How does that work ? Do you have to pick one and stick to it ?

I would also appreciate some realistic figures as to how much you bring in a year as new FO, including everything. Please mention the type of schedule you have.

What about aircraft assignment, is it like at the airlines ? Whenever a slot is available you move on, or is it assigned at the beginning ? In other words can you be assigned a large aircraft when starting ?

Thanks

Nope, you can change it, but not quite that frequently. We have three schedule periods a year, beginning February 1, June 1, and October 1. You can switch between the schedules and the 7/7 lines when you go into a new bid period. We bid for each one a couple of months beforehand -- the one for October 1 just closed out today, in fact.

I'll have to defer to someone else for first-year specifics under our new contract, but I'd realistically expect about $62K pre-tax, minus anything you send to the 401K, which will be matched at 50% of what you put in, up to 15% of your pay. But a lot of that depends on whether you work holidays or overtime, which you don't have a whole lot of control over. Plan on the base salary; everything else is gravy!

I don't recommend including per-diem in your calculations, but it adds up to be about $6000. Some tours you'll spend it if you have the time and inclination; other tours you'll be living on crew meals and won't spend it.


You can -- everything except the 737 (which you'll probably never see) or the Falcon 2000EX is possible for a newhire. The 2000EX pays more to FOs, so it almost certainly won't go to a newhire, but everything else is fair game. We're equipment locked for 39 months after an aircraft assignment; other than that, you can bid whatever you like if there's an opening. While a lock won't keep you from upgrading after switching airplanes, it's still a risk: any time remaining on that lock will be added to your first captain aircraft after you upgrade. So if it's a plane you really hate, you might be in it for a while.

I can add a few things to CA1900. I am a 2nd year FO and I plan on about $1750/check take home without any OT, per diem or holidays on the 18-day. But it is going to very greatly depending on where you live and how much you put into 401K. The salaries on this website are what we make, calculate everything from them and you will know exactly what you are going to make, they pay once every two weeks. You can expect anywhere from 5-15% more with all of the extras. Also some thing you may not consider being an airline pilot, Atlantic Bucks, AvTrip, company card points or just free bees, we get them all over. I even got a Key Lime Pie last week in MIA and a tip in TPA. As an added bonus you may want to plan on gaining 15-30 pounds as there are usually 10-20 opportunities to eat free cookies a day at this job.

As far as aircraft assignments, I wouldn't plan on anything bigger than the G-200, but that will be very lucky and you will stay junior for some time, there now seems to be movement from the smaller fleets to the bigger fleets for FOs since there is such slow movement on upgrades. I will be moving to a bigger fleet when I can hold it this fall. There will be a spot in the BE-400 for you.

I came over to this forum to see what was going on in this sector of the fliing Jobs in the country.
Its really nice to see guys talk about the job and the company they work for in a positive manner.
Go to the cargo forum to see what its like on the freight side, can get very ugly.
Keep in mind when reading over there that some of those who post are management assigned the task to keep the troops worried about something and fighting amongst themselves, its the large old style corporate union busting procedure.
The concept of service to the people riding in back used to exist at the majors, not anymore.

CA1900, NZNV

Thank you very much for taking the time to answer my questions.

Do you have any aircraft type that regularly fly to Europe or International destinations ? (Just to know if you have any extensive international operation)

I am aware that Netjets has no jumpseat privileges, do you have reduced airfares ? If not, how many frequent flyer miles do you usually accumulate in a year ?

Thanks.

I'll try to answer your questions serhito,

As far as int'l ops at NJA, they are quite prevalent, especially among the larger fleet types. The Falcon EASY is probably the a/c that will get you to Europe once in a while, but they do not hire directly into that fleet. However, the Falcon 2000, G200, Sovereigns, and X's do quite a bit of overseas flying, mostly to Canada, Mexico, Hawaii, and the islands (Carribean and Bermuda). There are also the occasional flights into South America.

You are correct, we have no jumpseat privileges, and the amount of airline miles you accumulate have a lot to do with your base and which airline provides the majority of service to your base. I am currently in the DFW area, so I fly AA about 75% of the time and SWA the remainder. I usually can cash in my AA miles once a year for a free roundtrip ticket to Europe and then get one free roundtrip SWA ticket once a year redeemable for any domestic trips I might have. Not a bad deal considering you have an assigned seat and don't need to sweat it out seeing if you'll get on.
You will also gain GE capital points from the company provided credit card. These points are redeemable for a variety of things, one of which is a price discount on airline tickets. Typically, for every $1000 you accumulate on the card, you will get $10 off anything on the list of perks. So far, my card has over $20,000 on it in a period of 5 months, so the points come quickly.

Do the airline tickets they purchase allow you to use your points to upgrade? What about hotels...does the company book your room or do you get to choose? Thanks for the info.

The company books all airline and hotel reservations.

We get to keep all loyalty points. The hotel points seem to be worth more than the airline points. I usually get about 150,000 Hilton points a year. Also get quite a few PriorityClub (Crowne Plaza, Intercontinental, etc) Marriott and Hyatt points.

Last month, I just stayed at a couple of 5-star hotels in Rome and Brussells using points.

Also, Hilton lets you designate an airline for points also. I get .5 Southwest point whenever I stay at a Hilton.

I understand that when a pilot begins a tour it generally starts with taking an airline flight from their domicile to whereever they are needed, which brings me to my question. I was looking at the list of domiciles and I saw that PDK (Peachtree Dekalb in Atlanta) is on the list. If I'm not mistaken, PDK is strictly a general aviation airport, i.e. no airlines. So how would things work for a pilot who chooses to be based there?

You will park your car at Signature for free and then take a taxi (sedan service) to ATL to catch an airline. And yes the company pays the $70 to get you to ATL, but if you volunteered to take MARTA I'm sure no one would complain. The same goes for TEB and VNY and even when you are at an airport like MDW they may send you in a taxi to ORD to catch a flight. The exception is in the NYC area the company arranges a CLS sedan to move you around.

NZNV,
Did you happen to be in BWG last week? I talked with a couple Netjets guys that flew the Beechcraft/Hawker 400.

Nope, never been to BWG. Spending some quality time in MUT today though.

Parking
 

At my home base can I just park at signature and tell them Im with NJ then go jump on an airline?

It depends on what the policy of the fbo or fbos at your pilot base is for allowing pilots to park- Signatures are not at every airport and each fbo will have it's own policies that can change at any time. Most will allow it and give you a ride to the terminal, but not all. Also, as the fractionals grow, the parking spots will fill up and more and more fbos will either allow no more (probably on a first come, first served basis so you won't know until you are there if you will have a space) or will just stop allowing anyone to do it if it starts cutting into customer spaces too much. Recently there have been problems in Kansas City with Executive Beechcraft suddenly changing the policy and I'm not sure if it has been resolved in a happy way for the pilots. The fbo at PDX has a policy of only allowing you to park there if you are actually taking a company airplane out of the fbo. These are just a couple of examples. I would suggest at least calling or visiting the fbo where you plan on trying to park to find out their policy.

What would one have to do to get a seat on the 737? Longevity with the company, or is that an invitation only sort of thing? Thanks!

Get in line behind 2,800 other guys. I think there is a longevity requirement at NJ (something like 2 years), but it's based on seniority, just like everything else in aviation.

Yeah, let's see here: 2 guppys in the fleet, 2900+ pilots, no retirement age, seniority based bidding: NOT A CHANCE IN HELL!!!!

I park at the local airport Hilton here in CVG. They are great about it and we just give the drivers a good tip each time. You really get to know each of the drivers pretty well.

Not to beat a dead horse but I have a quick ? about the Gulfstream bases at NJ. This is the most current thread I found regarding bases, didn't think I needed to start a whole new one for; but anyway it seems the Gulfstreams operate slightly different than the rest of the fleet? If so are the crews home based also like the rest? Found a lot of info on the NJA bases but wasn't sure if the Gulfstreams operate the same way. I've got a long way to go but NJ is certainly a company I am interested in down the road, especially the international flying. Thanks!

Currently those pilots who fly for NJI on the IV, 450, V, and 550 can live almost anywhere they want in America- more choices than even the grandfathered pilots at NJA. It will be interesting to see how the entire integration goes. They claim nobody will be displaced from their home bases. My guess is that they will get a grandfather rule like the pre '05 contract pilots got on the '07 contract and since all new hires will come from NJA the majority will go to the new 100 list.

Unfortunately you have to already be here to qualify for home basing. All NJI FOs will be filled by NJA pilots. If you were to get hired at NJA and wait maybe four years and to hold an NJI slot you will still be under the 100 bases. We will be adding ten more in a few years though. Probably not what you were looking for, hope it helps.

Thanks for the info, it's about what I figured. I remember reading somewhere else about NJI slots being filled by NJA pilots, seems to make sense. I'm kinda thinking long term anyway, I know it'll be a while before I even get to NJA at this point.