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Part 135 Part 135 commercial operators

Air Cargo Carriers

Old 01-18-2012, 11:21 AM
  #21  
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Originally Posted by FlyJSH View Post
(for the record, I have no experience with Air Cargo Carriers except for a buddy I met who tied down next to my 208)

"To be honest I wasnt too impressed at the panel interview portion, everyone seemed like they didnt want to be there and the head of training was chewing tobacco and spitting it in a cup sitting right next to me...I mean if you need a chew that bad, take a break! In a interview, you have to be kidding me"


Congratulations, you just need to get fitted for your double breasted uniform. You already have the "these people are below me" attitude required for the old school Delta.

Have you ever been to a national union meeting (I'll guess no)? They are held in the afternoon and several of the freight guys are nodding off. Why? Because the rest of the world works when the sun is shining and freight dawgs don't. At a prior company, we did all of our training from sunset to sunrise to insure the new hire knew what he was getting into.

If it were up to me, every pilot would fly boxes (or haul jumpers, tow banners, or be the company president's b!tch). It teaches one that we are not just a bunch of 9-5ers: we will be away from home, work crappy hours, and miss little Billy's soccer game (Waaaa!).

This job requires a bunch of sacrifices. Some of us understand them and are willing to make them. But the crybabies and homebodies that only see "I will be making a zillion dollars and have free travel" have torn down the industry because they thought they found a shortcut.

Professionalism has many definitions. Chewing Tobacco isn't in my definition (assuming he hits the spittoon).

By the way, many 121 companies won't be able to tell you which base you will get.... some won't even be able to tell you which airframe.
Wow, slightly angry
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Old 01-18-2012, 11:46 AM
  #22  
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Originally Posted by cstyle09 View Post
I worked there several years ago so you may find fresher info but I seriously doubt what I'm going to tell you has changed much:

QOL and morale are low, turnover is high. You will fly stinky, old, worn out freight planes full of god knows what to some of the more backwater destinations you could ever think of. Planes will break frequently; they will be fixed less frequently. You will fly in weather that you never thought possible. Arriving late is completely unacceptable. You will grow to dislike the sight of the sun and daytime flying. All of this BTW, is SOP in the 135 cargo would.

At ACC, the good news is: The checks always clear and they don’t have a history of laying people off. You cant say that about many 135 cargo outfits. And you get to fly the SD3, the Irish Concorde. Anybody can fly a round plane; it takes a real pilot to fly a square. Seriously, the Shorts is a great first multi turbine. Easy systems, slow ref speeds. Pretty tough to get into too much trouble, with that thing.

The bad is: ACC used to be the "Best of the worst", from what I hear; it has now slipped back toward the middle of the pack. I hear the company is struggling financially. (Which one’s aren't) I also hear that the airline side of the business has been in bad shape for some time and the end of the Iraq contract has really hurt the company overall. (That is at least "third-hand" info, so take it for what it's worth.)

It's true, you wont know where you will be based until ground school is over or almost over. This is due to their route structure and will likely never change. The big difference between this situation and the regionals is, you can’t commute. You work Mon night thru Sat morning (most routes). Good luck jump seating home and back in 48 hours. BTW, if you don’t get back in time for work Monday night, you'll be fired. If you go there be willing to move to any of the bases. (Don’t know what they are now but rest assured, you won’t find too many "garden spots") Beckley, WV comes to mind.

If you get on one of the higher flight time routes, you can build time quickly and upgrade or move on. Also, be ready to sign a non-prorated training contract. They take this very seriously and have gone after pilots who didn’t pay.

Typical 135 cargo stuff, there is a reason very few people stay with this kind of flying for more than a year or two. My time there was very valuable. I'm happy I did it, but even happier I got out.

Good luck to you

BTW, In my opinion, Chewing tobacco during an interview is incredibly unprofessional, and the fact that the CP and/or HR person didn’t stop it tells you something. 135 Cargo or not, If I'm expected to be in a suit, you shouldn't have a dip in. Have some respect for the other people in the room. Not to mention what a disgusting habit that is in general. Just my opinion.
Thanks for posting this info about ACC.
Question is where can you go after this?
I know it's multi turbine time, but where do pilots typically go after this?
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Old 01-18-2012, 12:15 PM
  #23  
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Again let me preface this by saying, my info is a few years old and things may have changed a bit. I know a few guys that still work there but dont stay in touch with them regularly. With that said:

Where people go post ACC depends on a lot of things but I'd say most fall into two catagories:

1. Fo's that leave prior to upgrade. These guys normally split with 1k-2k total time and 0PIC. They end up at the regionals. Considering some were hired with < 500 total time, thats not a bad move if you want to work for the airlines. Probably a faster way of building time than CFI'ing and you'll learn a heck of a lot more.

2. Guys that that stick around, upgrade and get the 1000 PIC Turbine. They have lots more options. Flexjet, Avantair, Corporate jobs, Qatar, Kalitta, etc. Depending on how much time you had when you come in and what route you get, this can take a few years.

I dont know of anybody who has gone straight from ACC to any legacy carrier or SWA, although many have tried. If anybody tries to tell you that ACC is the fast track to working for UPS, dont believe them. Many have tried this, I know of only one guy who managed to get an interview, and he was there 5+ years, in the SDF hub everynight. A couple of guys have gone from ACC to FedEx, but they had major internal recomendations. Working at ACC had no effect on them getting hired there.

All of this depends upon the pilot hiring market of course.
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Old 01-18-2012, 02:38 PM
  #24  
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Originally Posted by cstyle09 View Post
Again let me preface this by saying, my info is a few years old and things may have changed a bit. I know a few guys that still work there but dont stay in touch with them regularly. With that said:

Where people go post ACC depends on a lot of things but I'd say most fall into two catagories:

1. Fo's that leave prior to upgrade. These guys normally split with 1k-2k total time and 0PIC. They end up at the regionals. Considering some were hired with < 500 total time, thats not a bad move if you want to work for the airlines. Probably a faster way of building time than CFI'ing and you'll learn a heck of a lot more.

2. Guys that that stick around, upgrade and get the 1000 PIC Turbine. They have lots more options. Flexjet, Avantair, Corporate jobs, Qatar, Kalitta, etc. Depending on how much time you had when you come in and what route you get, this can take a few years.

I dont know of anybody who has gone straight from ACC to any legacy carrier or SWA, although many have tried. If anybody tries to tell you that ACC is the fast track to working for UPS, dont believe them. Many have tried this, I know of only one guy who managed to get an interview, and he was there 5+ years, in the SDF hub everynight. A couple of guys have gone from ACC to FedEx, but they had major internal recomendations. Working at ACC had no effect on them getting hired there.

All of this depends upon the pilot hiring market of course.
Qatar? Interesting... Do they consider Turbo prop time? I've heard, TP time overseas is as good as piston time, meaning almost useless. Looking at jobs overseas, they all require jet time.
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Old 01-18-2012, 02:42 PM
  #25  
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I personally know of 2 at Qatar and one waitng for a class date. Don't believe any of them had any prior jet experience.
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Old 01-18-2012, 03:01 PM
  #26  
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Originally Posted by cstyle09 View Post
I personally know of 2 at Qatar and one waitng for a class date. Don't believe any of them had any prior jet experience.
Good to know, Qatar may well be the exception...
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Old 01-18-2012, 03:07 PM
  #27  
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I dont know of anybody who has gone straight from ACC to any legacy carrier or SWA, although many have tried. If anybody tries to tell you that ACC is the fast track to working for UPS, dont believe them. Many have tried this, I know of only one guy who managed to get an interview, and he was there 5+ years, in the SDF hub everynight. A couple of guys have gone from ACC to FedEx, but they had major internal recomendations. Working at ACC had no effect on them getting hired there.
I'm one of those guys that have managed to get a decent job straight from the Shorts. In retrospect i probably would have preferred going to a regional when I was an F.o but at the time no regionals were hiring. It worked for me but it was a long time coming and yes I was one of those guys who loaded near 7000#s of freight by hand in their uniform every night.

Absolutely don't think working there will help you get on at UPS. There was rumors of a flow through from management years ago but make of that what you will. A lot of guys form a genuine disillusionment with boxes and UPS (ask any former feeder pilot how difficult it is flying as a feeder for brown) and would probably stack shelves before applying there.

I guess a year out of your life isn't bad (1yr training contract) and it is good flying experience, so if you are at around the 500tt mark you could probably do a lot worse than to fly the old box for a while. I guarantee when you get a real job you'll still be telling stories from your freight days.
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Old 01-19-2012, 05:32 AM
  #28  
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ACC will have a "flow-through" to being the pilot of Air Force One before they have one with UPS. For several reasons, it's simply not going to happen.

Yea, 2-3 (or more) years is a long time in that kind of work. Working for ACC was a pretty good choice for most of the people I know who went there. If you're young and single (you can afford to live on next to nothing for awhile) and you're willing to work hard under less than ideal working conditions, I'd say its a decent choice for somebody with 500-1000 total time looking for their first turbine job.

It's an especally smart choice if you wan to fly corperate or fractional. There is probably no faster way to 1000 Turbine PIC. Way faster than the regionals.

Oh, I forgot, quite a few guys at Omni now also.

Good Luck
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Old 01-19-2012, 06:10 AM
  #29  
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Originally Posted by cstyle09 View Post
ACC will have a "flow-through" to being the pilot of Air Force One before they have one with UPS. For several reasons, it's simply not going to happen.

Yea, 2-3 (or more) years is a long time in that kind of work. Working for ACC was a pretty good choice for most of the people I know who went there. If you're young and single (you can afford to live on next to nothing for awhile) and you're willing to work hard under less than ideal working conditions, I'd say its a decent choice for somebody with 500-1000 total time looking for their first turbine job.

It's an especally smart choice if you wan to fly corperate or fractional. There is probably no faster way to 1000 Turbine PIC. Way faster than the regionals.

Oh, I forgot, quite a few guys at Omni now also.

Good Luck
I may just try it since I am really low on the multi time (50) to go to a regional. Pay seems to be better than a lot of Regionals if the data on APC is correct (25000 1st year FO, 17000 or less for many B1900 regional operators).
However, their website is not showing that they are hiring. Somebody posted they were desperate for pilots???
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Old 01-19-2012, 03:19 PM
  #30  
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I think they have a link on their careers section where you can either upload a resume or do an online application.

Good luck! It seems if you get a base right away life isn't so bad. If you happen to live near MKE get used to hearing the phone ring at random times of the day!
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