If you love the job then good for you, but to everyone else, this guy is the minority. Airshare is honestly great if you're 25 and single with no home life / life outside of aviation. If you have a family/hobbies then right now the lifestyle here is not good.

 

I don't get it. If you sign up to work at an operator with a known schedule like Airshare, don't complain about that schedule later - you must have been fully aware when you signed on. Now, if you were promised a better schedule and you don't get it, that is bait-and-switch and another story. That said, I have known about the schedule at EAS for years and it hasn't improved much. Don't apply if you (or your wife/family) can't handle the schedule. If you sign up, don't ***** about it. Simple as that.

 

As Myself and others have already stated, what was advertised / what is happening is vastly different.

 

Understood. If that happened to me I would send apps out, secure another job and leave - but that is just me. Employment is a two-way street.

FYI - Spirit Airlines is hiring fractional pilots with multiple open bases. I just read on another forum that an October 2011 newhire was recently upgraded to Captain. If you are FTW based, Spirit is hiring big time into its DFW operation. If you are desperate, the regionals will hire you if you have a pulse - a buddy who formerly flew part 135 Citations was just picked up at Republic on the E170. There are other options out there.

Good luck.

 

Hey Fetzer,

What they signed on for is radically different than what they are getting now... But, in the defense of EAS Management, I don't think even they could have had any idea how negatively their implementation of the Astro system would affect their pilots morale and fatigue levels. Being a regional fractional, they often said that although they were on a 12/3 schedule, that they would get back to home base often and do many out and backs: While 12/3 is a draconian schedule by any measure, at least they would get home during that 12 day period. Now, since Astro was implemented after December 2013, they might never get back home during their tour and only be back home for 3 days before the nightmare starts all over. Astro with a 7/7 or 8/6 schedule, tough but bearable... Astro with 12/3, sweat shop.

And you always hear "OK if you are single"... which always maddens me. Why shouldn't single pilots deserve a decent life too? Again, these pilots lives have changed radically, and not for the better, with the implementation of Astro. When AvantAir pilots talked about being "optimized", well it ended in "-omized", it often ended in a fatigue call after endless days of min rest/max duty, constantly monitoring 10 in 24 and waiting to drop time, and countless schedule changes during the day and even in flight. Hopefully, EAS will not let this happen there.

Fly safe out there...

 

Please forgive my ignorance, but what, exactly is Astro? My Googling turned up Astro Aviation, but that appears to be a contract pilot outfit. In reading the above post, it seems that Astro might be some sort of crew/aircraft schedule optimization application. Am I right?

 

Yes, it is.

 

In the 121 world, everyone hates the pariah of PBS (Preferential Bidding System)... But when compared to Astro, PBS seems like a winning lottery ticket.

Here's more about Astro: The Optimal Path

Here's Bold IQ getting excited about EAS getting Astro: The Optimal Path

 

Interesting reading. Thanks for providing the links.

It sounds like Astro is configurable; maybe EAS management can tweak the configuration to provide greater pilot satisfaction without screwing up the financials. The Astro literature certainly suggests one can do "what if" scenarios to test the effect [affect?] of changes.

 

The word on the street is that Astro takes no account for human factors.... If they wanted to, they could include a subroutine for fatigue like Jeppesen's CrewAlert Jeppesen CrewAlert. The question is whether the Astro programmers and their customers actually care about human factors. From the AvantAir experience, it seems pretty clear that they didn't. After all, pilots WERE a dime-a-dozen.

But Astro IS great at running drones, though... The Optimal Path