Puck Hawg

I agree 💯 with what potato said. You’ll notice there’s not a lot of rebuttals to much of the negativity. If you ask many like myself why they have stayed to this point, it’s because of a paid commute and two week blocks off. It’s not a bad gig, but money talks at the end of the day. The Company AND Union brought this terrible contract to us and for some unknown reason the group passed it. Then, the company strung people along, INCLUDING the D.O. talking to recurrent classes about how “improvements are coming” and to “hang in there”.

All of that was smoke and mirrors to get us through the holiday rush. You have options. Yea, flying a 747 around the world is amazing, but do yourself a favor and hit up a regional or LCC.

ocskyguy

So, I've been watching this thread unfold. Much of what is said is very valid. But, a career is long journey. Have seen my buddy Maxjet advocating avoiding Kalitta or moving on for those who are there now. However, what you really have to ask yourself is what you really want from your career. Airline flying is a balance between money and family. Throw in the experience of seeing the world.
I spent 30+ years in the employ of the one eyed monster who is Connie Kalitta. He is a complex mixture of bully, genius and, occasionally benevolent friend. The current mid management group has made K4 a difficult environment. This will pass. In my tenure at K4, I saw multiple waves of managers come and go, along with their policies.
QOL, it is tough to beat not having to commute multiple times a month. And, with a little seniority on the vacation bid, you can get 8 weeks off straight without missing a paycheck. I did it many years, even when I was mid level seniority. Money? Meh. Could definitely make more cabbage at a major. Even maybe at some of the LCCs. Along with better retirement. But, if you know the deal upfront, you can save appropriately.
Having said all of that, the best thing about K4 is the experience of seeing the world on somebody else's dime. Long days to get there, but so would it be as a straight up tourist. Most people (and pilots) will never have the opportunity to experience the cultural diversity that the pilots at Kalitta take for granted in their day to day life. Just sayin'

mhaviate

Lots of great information. We had similar complaints about contracts at the regionals, its a never ending struggle. I guess no job is perfect. Home basing and a couple weeks off in a row does sound very appealing to me. Having only 5 years left, I feel like its my last chance to fly the "big iron". Flying around the clock, however, would be a new thing for me. (One nice thing about the regionals is we were generally snoring all night, except for the party next door.) Sounds like the 3 hr cat naps are the key to survival. I like ocskyguy comment about seeing the world on someone else's dime. Trying to understand those foreign controllers will be another challenge. (and them trying to understand me).

SinkRatePullUp

Having flown for a regional and now kalitta I can say I'm never as tired as when I was flying 5-6 legs a day at my regional. Long days on the 74 really aren't like long days in the regional world. On a 16 hour flight I will likely sleep for about 4-5 hours of that. Also since we don't have pax and thus no door you can get up and stretch your legs and use the bathroom whenever you want when you are flying. It sounds kind of silly but not having to call flight attendants and go through that whole process really makes the flying more enjoyable. After doing this I wouldn't want to go back to the passenger world and a lot of people I talk to all say the same thing.

It's not as glamorous and you'll probably look like hot garbage when you're walking through the airport in Incheon on some of those days but it beats the hell out of spending a significant portion of the day walking through terminals to get to your plane, paying a fortune for crappy terminal food, and being a referee for the drama between flight attendants Cargo isn't for everyone and kalitta isn't for everyone but its perfect for me and I don't plan on leaving. Ymmv.

shroomwell

What section of the contract “flatly states that the pilot is ‘on the hook’ for 16 days per bid period?”

shroomwell

You will be just fine. You may be flying around the clock, but there are many long trips that don’t seem like it. For instance, the LAX-SYD flight (all 14.5 hours of it) is almost entirely daytime depending on the season. And you get to spend about 6 of those hours in the bunk if you so choose (but don’t get me started on captains that insist on more than one break each…). And then you arrive at a normal bedtime and go to bed if you want, or go have a beer or something with your crew.

anthony210

oh boy you know it’s gonna be a fun trip when in the van the captain asks if we’re all ok with three 2 hour ish breaks…. I 100% prefer one long block over split breaks.

I have been here 2.5 years with the bulk of that time on the 767. Just switched over to the 777 back in October.

I will say that Kalitta has some great perks and it’s generally a fun plus to work. We make decent money and no commuting. Though we’re falling behind in the compensation department and my only concern is managements lack of concern.

What I mean by that is management does not seem concerned at all over attrition and things are slowing down. A lot of people made the argument that you could make quite a bit of money here when the lines were all at 80-100+ hours with zero days off worked.

Now our pay rates are low AND the lines are mostly at min 64 hours. I think I’m 2023 attrition will get worse as we start to see people that stuck around because the money was good start to bail out now that everyone is making the minimum. Maybe things will pick up, maybe they won’t but I really hope management wakes up and does something about it.

sky jet

Anthony 210 and Shroomwell, you make it sound like only grumpy old captains want short breaks. I have had crews that half want two short and the other half want two long breaks, sometimes none want long, occasionally none want short and every other possible combination. We are all adults and should be able to work it out. Sometimes I get the break schedule I prefer and sometimes not. (Yes, as captain I could force the issue, but I try to be accommodating to all)

CrawData

This.

There’s also a lot of merit to having one small break while you’re wide awake, and then a really long one later in the flight when you’re often more likely to be tired. Moreover, if there are four pilots splitting things up, each pilot and their IRP can really arrange things however they like, assuming the PIC isn’t a goon about it. If the FO and the IRP swapping into the right seat want big breaks they can do that, and it doesn’t mean the PIC and the other IRP can’t break it up into, say, one long and one short break each. There’s a lot of room for nuance here.

As Sky has very rightly pointed out: these things can be worked out and compromises can be made.

jhugz

Or you can be like one check airmen that dinged you one hour into your four hour break (1st break) because he was too tired and needed to sleep. Then proceeded to sleep all the way to top of D so that he could ski/snowboard the next day. That was cool…