Got an e-mail from DAL today. Do I understand it right that DAL is only covering the first night at the hotel? I thought indoc was covered and then you be on your own. Somebody know the details?

 

Basic endoc is covered, which lasts about two weeks. This gives sufficient time to find a crash pad, etc. You are responsible for lodging after this during systems and sim training.

 

Thanks, I guess I was too excited and misread. Reading it again it clearly states what you stated.

 

wow they don't pay for your hotel? Kind of disgraceful

 

Not really. It is fully deductable, so either you deduct it or your company deduct it. Haven't really met a DAL guy that lives paycheck to paycheck anyway, so either way is fine - just different math with same result.

 

Yeah I hear ya, but every other career where you go to training, they foot the bill, the whole bill, its the cost of doing business

 

Saab, your point is well taken. I love Delta, but having to scrounge a crash pad for training is not conducive to the kind of studying needed to get through the new training program. If you figure an extra sim session probably costs more than hotel rooms for a couple of pilots the savings probably doesn't work out. While I was in training a pilot's car got broken into, crash pads got hit by lightning and lost power. The neighborhoods around the airport have OLD OLD infastructure and almost every afternoon the Atlanta thunderstorms result in power interruptions. And of course 12 guys in a very small house smell, snore and get in the way like 12 guys in a very small house - nobody needs this drama in their life while trying to learn a new airplane and a new company.

Jet Blue built their own training hotels and keeps a lid on costs that way.

Delta is such a first class experience and does more for their new hires than most airlines (the new hire dinner & wing ceremony is VERY nice). You'll be happy in the crash pad - but a hotel room would probably provide a better training environment.

 

I tend to agree on the basis of the impression it gives, but Delta pays for so much stuff that I'd never have expected. You already mentioned the new hire dinner for two, including an open bar and positive space tickets for spouses. Throw in a breakfast or lunch or two during Indoc as well. How about expedited passports and visas, and FAA physicals? (Not to mention the fun yellow fever shot!) The 75/76 program office pretty much supplies you with all gouge you need in an official-looking binder as well, the equivalent of which currently runs around $70 at Crew Outfitters. Then there's free parking and transpo to/from the airport, plus positive space reservations to/from home during any 48-hour break in training.

I figure I've already gotten enough free stuff that I wasn't expecting to more than cover the cost of the crash pad for the four weeks of aircraft training.

Bottom line is that, as someone else said, you can foot the bill for a crash pad for a month, or you could buy your own healthcare for 6 months and/or make a disgraceful $30, or $31, or $32 an hour for the entire first year like three other legacies who are also hiring. I pick the one-time business expense--you can't write off low wages. That's why I only considered Delta, JetBlue, and SWA. Sorry, but my time is worth more than $30 an hour, even as a new hire, and the fact that a union is willing to agree to poverty-level wages for its first-year guys to gain concessions for senior pilots who flat-out deserve better than they're getting anyway speaks volumes about the pilot groups themselves.

Also, to clarify, it is only during this initial training that you are responsible for your own lodging. For future recurrent, upgrade, transition, etc., Delta will pay for a hotel in ATL, even if you are ATL based, so long as you request one.

FWIW, the instructors here agree as well--they'd rather have us all in the same place so we can study together. I am not sure whether that would be more conducive to lots of partying instead, however. I prefer my crash pad to a hotel, but I am paying a bit more for essentially private quarters. (I share a place with two commuters on reserve who are rarely around and are pretty considerate when they are here.)

 

Well said, and I agree 100%, Delta is Delta! plain and simple, I just assumed they would put people up in a decent hotel for training, but your right in the grand scheme of things its peanuts considering the potential earnings you can make at Delta

 

Could not have said it better myself!!!!!!! Very true, great point