I only heard of the one guy who's a captain now at one of the wholly owned. I finally saw the video BTW it was pretty bad.

 

Co sign my whole upgrade class was done with a fed

 

FAs are going from blue to black, but not us.

 

I can't believe they still have jobs. After everything that happened with 3407 the media would have had a field day of something would have happened while one of them were PIC.

 

Like running into a parked plane? Didn't seem to blow up too badly.

 

Hold on for a minute there....most of those involved weren't trying to cheat the system by upgrading without the required time. Many were prior 135 guys that came from a scheduled operation. They submitted their upgrade sheet and the company accepted that time as being applicable for upgrade based off the upgrade worksheet in use at that time. After the tail strike incident the FAA dug pretty deep into all recent upgrades, and upon review of the new rules per Part 117 they determined that those candidates did not meet the requirements. Is it embarrassing? Yes. Was it frustrating for those involved? Yes! But to insinuate that those guys should be fired for a paperwork error after successfully completing an 121 approved upgrade program is a bit of a stretch....don't you think? For the record....the guy who had the tail strike wasn't egregiously shy of the 1000 hours required. Like the others, he had submitted his upgrade worksheet and it was approved. After the incident the FAA examined his times and found him to be approximately 15 hours short due to ferry flights that had been conducted under Part 91. Thats essentially what started the domino effect. And don't forget, before people start the whole "1000 hours 121, not experienced enough to be a Captain" rant, prior to the 117 rules taking effect all you needed to be a Captain in a 121 operation was an ATP and a PIC type. So guys with 1501 hours were upgrading not all that long ago at various operators.

 

Some airlines like the knee jerk reaction of destroying some ones career, at Mesa, you take responsibility for your mistakes or lack of judgement(reference the pilots using projected time instead of actual time on the upgrade), are sincere about it, blame no one else for it, and you'll probably still have a job at the end of the day. I know this must infuriate the flying nazi, elitist type A, superiority complexed, main line crj driving wholly owned pilots out there, but too bad!

 

Well in all honesty, the information was available in the form of a letter of interpretation from the FAA that addressed counting 135 scheduled cargo ops. It was not allowed. Had these people done their research they would have found that out.

I'm not saying they should have been fired but we live and die by regs that we are expected to know and understand. 117 rules included.

 

Not all of those guys were prior 135. There were a couple that had never worked anywhere but Mesa.

 

Does anyone know how long upgrade for a new hire hired today would be? And is it based on growth or attrition, etc.?