cubbies4life

pm me for why you don't want to work there

Cruz5350

There is no reason to PM this place is a joke. I talked to the owner Shane and his father for weeks on end about an opening with them. Then one day out of no where he stopped answering my emails and phone calls. After a few weeks I stopped pressing the issue and gave up. His father called my current company looking for a part for one of the plane's and expressed to me that the pilots were distraught and were taking it out on the company planes such as running through brake pads left and right. Sounds to me like a not so nice place to be. Just recently I also saw one of ther Navajo's for sale on controller which I believe ran their Kirksville-STL route. They will/are getting there a$$ handed to them by Cape Air and don't expect to see them around much longer.

Outlaw2097

and icing on the cake...

buddy of mine has actually had some trouble with PRIA while heading to a 121 carrier. he has informed me that other pilots have run into roadblocks with the PRIA portion of hiring, and all worked for AC1. fair warning for anyone out there...sounds like they dont take kindly to past employees.

Cal Varnson

Anyone know anything about the interview process there?

jheath

I was in a class of 5 FOs they just brought on. Reading through all the stuff written about the company on this thread it seems like things have changed a lot recently. Great morale, new CP, a few bad apple pilots let go, total pilot group sits at 15 right now (I'm number 15), and there's talk of bringing on another class in March. I know we're interviewing now. Good people. Guaranteed upgrade at 2500TT (or 2000TT with 500 in the Caravan). I got on at 1000TT as a CFI and the other guys in my class had between 1200-2000, almost solely CFI. I wouldn't say we're "getting our ass handed to us by Cape Air" at all. They took over the IRK EAS route, that's about it. It's true the Navajo is for sale but that's only to buy another Caravan. No guarantee but also no reserve lines and there's plenty of flying to go around right now. Top line is 95 hours with 18 days off, bottom is 85 with 11 days off. Home most nights. No training contract. We're bidding EAS routes out of ATL and there's talk about big expansion in the near future. We've got an interline agreement with UAL at ORD and others are in the works. Quote from management, "If we're still flying Caravans in 2 years, we're doing something wrong." Saab 340s is what Mx guys have heard. I know it's typical optimistic airline BS speculation, but I'm really happy here so far and there's real potential as the only way to go at an upstart is up. They're concerned about flying us too much right now because we're going to be transitioning to 121 by the end of the year and they don't want everyone to be at 1100 hours in November and have no one to fly for a month. It's fun flying with cool people and I'm just glad to be logging time again because I spent the last year working ops for US Airways here in STL.

Cruz5350

The talk about the Saabs is purely talk. I can tell you from personal experience they just can't afford it. Heck selling a Navajo to get a Carvan is a long shot. You're talking about at best a 250K airplane being sold for one in the 1mil category. Not likely imo.and it left a bad taste from them. Heck the haggled trying to pay my old company on a part that was less than 5K. If they can't foot a bill like that what makes me think they will be any better as an employer?

KC JODA

Are you still there? Did they upgrade their fleet? Did you make Captain yet?
Curious minds want to know...

Echofox

Jheath could you tell me what to expect for the interview? Technical questions and so on. Thanks.

KC JODA

A pilot who'd upgraded there left after AC1 decided NOT to abide by the contract after he'd upgraded, and kept him at the lower scale for Captain. He was told they couldn't pay the $36/hour as per contract.

So he told the owner he'd be looking to accept a position if one should come along. The owner said he understood.

When the offer did come along, the owner tried to sabotage the pilot by saying he had an oral agreement to stay on as a Captain. Fortunately, the pilot had STRONG references, a few of whom also knew the new boss at the new company and gave the pilot a thumbs up and said he was a good man and a man of his word who just ended up working for a company like AC1 out of NECESSITY.

The pilot is now doing JUST fine and getting paid what he is SUPPOSED to get paid without the song and dance.

AC1 is a good place to learn the ropes of scheduled carrier into a busy airport, but get in, get your time and GET OUT.

stlcfii

I was offered a Street Captain position with Air Choice One a few months ago. I was unemployed at the time and needed something local fast. From their first call and into the interview, everything I was told kept changing for the worse. Small things like days off, schedules, pay, QOL, etc…. Their offer letter stated that when I finished their 3 weeks of training I would get paid an amount (around $980) for my time. I completed week one of three (home computer training that was useless and filled with blatant errors) and the day before week 2 I received a call from their Chief Pilot stating they were retracting their offer. He refused to give a reason why. He said there would be a letter sent out stating why, that AC1 ‘wanted to do the right thing’, and that they would be paying me for my time thus far. Apparently doing the right thing didn’t include honoring their offer that cost me two weeks of job searching, numerous interviews, and future loss of pay. After a couple weeks worth of me calling/emailing for a reason/pay, I was finally told they were not going to tell me a reason and refused to pay me. So, I completed one week (45 hrs) worth of required work without pay. They refused to even give me minimum wage (illegal). All I can say is I should have trusted my gut from the beginning and not settled for such a position. From the start, I had a strong feeling that the company was nickel/diming the pilots. They talked about safety and wanting to grow to become like Southwest, but their training program, employees, and overall operating attitude screamed differently. It appears they want young low time pilots that will not tell them no when they tell them to do illegal or unsafe things. They don’t pay you for things that almost every other airline operation does (taxi pay, per-diem, etc), have policies that force you to buy uniforms/items through them at a much higher cost than you could get at the same location they are buying them from ,and flat out lie to your face. My advice is to RUN and never fly on them.