Question for CAL Pilots
 

It has been my dream for awhile now to fly for CAL someday. I just wanted some feedback from some of the current pilots about the company. How is life working for Continental? Do you enjoy your job? How are the bases? How is pay and retirement plans? Any kind of feedback and other info would be greatly appreciated.

Good friend of mine is a super-senior 777 FO at EWR. Gets all the trips/days he wants, lately to Bejing. He loves it and says he can't see doing anything else.

All the CAL pilots I talk to seem to like it alot.

I love it. I'm in EWR, but I don't live there! No one does. The flying in EWR is the best of CAL. Houston sucks! :D

bases
 

Houston is the largest base and is the most senior. Many of the pilots out of IAH live locally because the cost of living is so cheap.

Newark is the second largest and has a lot of interesting flying. Most of the transatlantic 75/76 trips are out of Newark and are really great.

Cleveland is relatively senior because the base used to be larger. When it shrank only the more senior pilots who wanted to live there could keep their lines. The flying is predominantly domestic.

Guam is a 73NG base. There is a stipend for pilots in guam and the payscale shifts. If assigned Guam as a newhire you will get second year pay, which is almost twice that of normal first year. The flying is mostly island hopping and some longer stuff to Northern Australia and a few other spots.


The pay overall at CAL is competitive with most other Legacy Carriers. If you can't enjoy life at CAL right now, then the Airlines probably aren't for you. Good Luck!

Where do transpacific flights fly out of? IAH?

My friend does mainly EWR-Asia, so I'd imagine EWR and IAH

EWR and IAH, but most of the good international flying is EWR. IAH has Honolulu and Tokyo. I'm not sure if they do Hong Kong. IAH does a lot of Central and South America. If you want Pacific flying, go to Guam. Lots of CAL pilots like it there.

Hey Duvie:

Would it be relatively easy to commute to EWR from IAH? If you were lucky enough to get on with CAL, would it be a good move to re-locate to Houston and commute to EWR until a IAH line comes available? What does the 756 do out of IAH?

Thanks!

flyboy1987 -

Commuting hub to hub is very unpredictable. There are quite a few CAL pilots that do it so you can bumped very easily as a junior pilot. There are alot of flights between the two locations, but the status of these flights in terms of loads change more than any other two destinations CAL serves.

I'm not as familiar with the Houston 756 lines, as a 756 pilot I'm sure Otto could add some better input, but a lot of the lines are domestic, MCO - IAH 757. EWR - IAH 762 for example. One of the only problems of being a 756 EWR pilot is that you may get stuck being an IRO. You might never get to land and currently the newest contract killed the dead-head pay.

On that note I really don't envy the newhires going to the 777. Less dead-heading, but they'll basically be an FE.

Commuting between CAL hubs is difficult. There are a lot of crews doing it plus the dead heading crews that are must rides. Most of the planes are 737's with an occasional 757 and 767. The 756 lines in IAH are mostly domestic and there is not very many lines there. I just flew with a guy that was former IAH that bid EWR because of the flying-he's 59 years old. Dead head pay for pilots is at 75% of full pay. Next July it goes back to 100%. IRO lines usually have at least one trip per month where they land the plane (usually a Florida turn). New hires going to the 777 are IRO's getting full wide-body pay both ways (no deadhead). Sure, you'll do your landings in the sim every few months, but after the first year, the pay is good. I don't want 16 hour legs, so I'll stay in the 756. 767 flying is very hard to get. You might get IRO in it, but it is real senior for FO's. Most of them can hold Captain on the 737, but stay in the 767 for the lifestyle. The 767 does the best flying in all of Continental. Honolulu, Rome, Amsterdam, etc. I can't hold it, but I scored a Frankfurt trip next week in it on the trip trade window. In the 777 you go to very few places and Tel Aviv and New Dehli are not garden spots.