Mesa
 

Can anyone give info on Mesa?

Bases? Staffing? Reserve life? Typical Schedules? Bidding? New Aircraft? QOL? Hawaii? General morale of pilot group?

Friend asked about them and I know ZERO. Also looks like they haven't hired in 5 years or so, so not much new hire info on the forums.

Thanks

All you need to know is J.O. is still in charge...

Check Mesa adding 9 900's thread. I have explained alot there.

INHUMANE. without compassion for misery or suffering; cruel. OR Mesa management. I have a friend that works there and its horror story after horror story weekly. I hope your friend stays as far away from this place as they can!

Search for mesa on youtube, google 'mesa bankruptcy'

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/19/bu...pagewanted=all

There are much better places to work.

Go somewhere else. Your friend will never upgrade here, 80 percent of the Captains are going to retire at Mesa. Always going to be short staffed FO's. So plan on having min days off with brutal schedules. Pay is the worst of the Regionals. I would be making 12,000 more a year if I was at Skywest. Plan on living on welfare wages in Hawaii until you can bid out. 8 years to hold PHX FO if that is what you covet. If the Majors don't hire (economy downturn), you will be stuck at a job where an Olive Garden manager makes 25,000 more a year. Even after 8 years and your never home! I have one more thing to say. The stress here CAN KILL YOU! I have never seen more medical issues with people than at Mesa. It's so hard to take good care of yourself when your just ran into the dirt.

Ok, I understand the morale isn't great.

With that said, I promise you don't have the worst pay in the industry. We have no duty rigs, no cancellation pay, at RAH. I credited 40hrs during the month of Katrina. Same with Gojets, look at their pay.

A few positives just for fun.

#1) Training

I don't know how to compare our training department to others because I've only been here, but after 10 years here, many years in the Navy and in other professional fields I am continually impressed with the degree of professionalism that the individual instructors, examiners and check-airmen exude. With rare exception they have always been extremely competent, understanding, helpful, and enjoyable.

Strangely whenever I've been in the pipeline for a transition (3 different a/c over 2 different certificates) or upgrade, or recurrent. I absolutely feel like I'm at a different company. Hell even ASAP remedial was a pleasure - sorry it's true!

You will have a solid training experience here, no doubt about it!

#2)

Chief Pilots out west are phenomenal! (Can't speak to the ones out east) These guys work their asses off for the pilot group. In many cases their hands are tied, but they persist in trying to do the right thing and are extremely fair. They are not out to get you, and are real pilot's pilots, (experienced pilots from the old school). We're dang lucky to have them, and most of us know it!

#3)

Down to earth professional crews who work hard, fly well, and act like decent human beings to one another and the people they come in contact with i.e. station personnel. Sounds mushy but we're all beat up and we know it, the only thing we truly have is each other, and so we tend to protect it, for sanity's sake.

#4)

A fleet of big RJ's.

#5)

Electronic Flight Bag! Yes, i know we have to pay for the Ipad ourselves but I don't mind because this is huge :)

#6)

Very good on-time/completion numbers which hopefully translates into extended contracts and future business. Please see #3 for the reason behind this.


This is not Koolaid guys. Trust me, I'm a big critic of this place, but I also know good things when I see them, and what I've mentioned in this post is the truly good, and not the only good, there is more, but this stands out for me.

What are the predictions on the upgrade times. When movement starts will they come down? Does Mesa have a lot of lifers because of all the stagnation at the majors.

Right now the most Jr mainland upgrade is about 9 1/2 years. Not sure about HI. Probably at least 6 yrs, maybe worse.

My prediction is that upgrade will return to about a 5 year average within the next year or two. Just a guess tho. Who knows! We would need to grow significantly for that to happen, and/or mainline hiring picks up significantly. So actually that is a foolish prediction to even make.

Mesa doesn't have an inordinate number of lifers, they just make up a larger percentage of the group than they used to because we went from near 2000 pilots to 650 in a short period of time. The only people who could hold the left seat after the decimation were ~10 year guys and of course they tended to be the people who hadn't moved on, (As we all know many reach a point with age, and pay, where it doesn't make sense to move on.)

If Mesa could grow again to a pilot group of 2000 then those 200 to 300 pilots who are truly lifers (if they even represent a number that big) would only represent 10 to 15 % of the group, as they once did.

Do I personally see us ever being that big again? Not really, but who knows?