Question for CAL Pilots
#1
Gets Weekends Off
Thread Starter
Joined APC: Jun 2006
Posts: 1,523
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.
#4
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!
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!
#7
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.
#8
Line Holder
Joined APC: Aug 2006
Posts: 79
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!
#9
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 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.
#10
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 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.
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