Will be starting CommutAir as a FO March 12th. Interview was a great experience as were all the company folks. Seems like a great company with excellent training, the potential to upgrade quickly and lots of flying! Anyone also in the March class or just recently finished with ground school feel free to chime in.

 

lol..............Seriously, congrats. The two happiest days of your life. The day you find out you got the Commutair job and the day you find out you got out.

 

Do you mind sharing the times you had when you applied?
Thanks and good luck for training!

 

865 TT with 55 ME and some Turbine time

 

Typed long post...APC refused to load.

Sparknotes:

Company is not great. That actually made me laugh out loud. About two months ago they threw a Capt under the bus in a mass email to the entire company.

Cleveland is slowly downsizing. Newark is slowly expanding. Flying as a whole pretty much staying equal (Newark is officially the larger base now).

Maintenance and overnights seem to be improving ever so slightly...maybe I'm just seeing less of it now. Our one truly good overnight swapped to another, crappy hotel a month or so ago.

Attrition is continuous but slow it seems. I know three FOs who have left in the last month (one corporate, one Republic, one GoJet).

Off reserve in two-three months, especially as we ramp up for summer. Lineholder pretty soon thereafter. I've got less than a year and have weekends and holidays without issue.

Bid window still at 78-88 instead of 74-82. That's getting old quick and taking a toll on everyone's schedule - even the most senior of Captains.

 

Hows training at C5?

 

I don't know who's doing it now.
I had a very experienced guy, a trainee (who I think is doing it full time now) and a captain who were all three great. We also had another captain who came in part time for a week who was an absolute dick on a power trip because he part-timed in the training department.

They'll bust their asses to get you through. If you know the memory packet cold and pay attention in class, you'll make it through no problem.

The sim in Seattle is old but it's an absolute beast and flies excellent for a sim. If you go to Atlanta for sim (you shouldn't, but weirder things have happened), God help you.

You can walk to the mall, down the street to several restaurants, and over to Walmart for basically anything you need. HQ is directly across the street from hotel. Double occupancy (unless you're lucky and get paired with the other sex for sim). It's one of those long term hotels so you have all the typical apartment-style amenities.

Know the memory packet from end to end and understand there will be changes in class to the procedures. Week one is indoc, easy stuff, just pay attention. Week two is systems. Week three is review and cockpit procedures training. Weekends off.

Get to know your classmates and the FAs who will likely go through with you, and ENJOY your time off, but study study study. It's a thorough program that is well designed to get you through, but it's a lot of PowerPoints and easy to get frustrated staring at those all day.

PM me if you have any questions.

 

DirecTo I really appreciate the information!

 

I'll be in that class too, in fact working on memorizing the information right now, and resisting the temptation to learn the systems off of smartcockpit,lol.

 

Anyone think how places like CommutAir will do once FTDT goes into action in 2 years?

Just thinking out of the box, short hop prop outfits will feel the most pain.

Shouldn't be a deal here at Colgan as the Saabs will probably be gone by then anyways