NatGeo

One major morale issue they have with FO's is leaving them behind if there is an extra paying passenger. The quickest way to tick off a pilot is to bench him.

The major/regional airlines and the government need to start contributing to the cost of training commercial pilots. It is not really fair that a handful of part 135 operators with FO training pipeline programs have to bare the full burden of training CFI's for the entire industry.

One problem I see with Cape Air as a company is that their recruiters are always "looking." If you have to post an ad on 350 every 3 days, the odds are that the work conditions at your company are less then ideal.

They really need to overhaul their interview process. Interviewing 20 pilots at a time in the same room is a bad first impression. Another bad first impression is not having your CP or ACP at the interview. Someone that flies across the country to interview in person is going to be mad if they only get to interview with the 250 hour recruiter. That is what Skype is for. That is a good way to limit your hiring pool to a 300 nm radius.

VIRotate

Agreed on everything you just said.

SkyFive

Really? To whom shall we send the bill?
The government already trains commercial pilots, it's called the military.

Boris Badenov

Seriously. "I want to be a pilot, where's my job? I'm calling the Government!"

Good grief. Also get off my lawn.

flyingagain

Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to just have 10 more junior captains system-wide that could cover those flights than to have 60 FO's? I have no idea what the OpsSpecs say, but 10 captains would be way cheaper than 60 FO's and you'd also reduce overtime and have better morale by being able to have good coverage for pilots going on vacation, FMLA, medical issues, etc.

At least one regional airline hires guys to be dual qualified in both seats. If what you said is true, why aren't they doing that? And if the pay is as good as you claim (72k 2nd year, 100k+ 3rd year, etc.) then I can't see them struggling all that much with retention. There are a lot of guys who want a flying job that allows them to be home every night. There are a lot of well qualified high time guys doing charter gigs that they're way overqualified for simply because the job has some major quality of life advantages.

VIRotate

9K wishes they can get 10 captains just to cover the line let alone those circumstances.

As for pay, yes you can choose to work 5, 13 hour days straight doing 6-8 legs a day in an old, noisy, slow airplane. Oh right, you are home everyday...such amazing QOL. I mean let me tell how awesome it is refueling and de-icing your plane before every flight when it's -15 outside. All about being home though, am I right?

Baron55

Geeze, man!!! You sure are bitter. I was there for almost three years( left in '14) never once did I fuel or de-ice my own plane. I loved that job and some days wish I could go back.

VIRotate

Yes I am bitter as are most of the FOs that left because of poor treatment. When bags become more important than you, you tend to get better after a year of it. Been hearing it from senior captains too. It's not the same airline it was a few years back. Times are changing.

malc4d

Well l guess passengers don't like not arriving with their belonging too.

reservetank

It used to be a much better airline. I would even go so far as to say it was fun to be there. Maybe a short story will bring understanding to the bitterness that some people feel.
When the pilot shortage started, the supply of new hire captains suddenly dried up and that's when things started to get ugly. A lot of captains pitched in and covered the open flying and put some decent coin in their pockets. Things were still manageable at that point, I'd say it was 2012/2013-ish.
Then they opened Montana. While it makes the company a good profit, it strained all of the resources, primarily due to this crazy idea that pilots could live in places like Wolf Point. (They did, but ask them what they were sleeping on.) Bases had to close, captains got bumped in order to feed Montana. Anyone who had the silly dream of retiring from Cape Air as a captain on the Key West run was left to dream.
Attrition continued, and nothing was/is plugging the hole. The union and management had this bright idea to "renegotiate" the contract a few seasons before the due date in 2016. They negotiated like it was the Great Regional Furlough of 2008 and made a lot of lateral changes, not really improving conditions, instead just rearranging the contract language. Raises were scheduled for the length of the contract at about the same lukewarm rate as the previous contract. FOs received a minimal pay tweak as well. Provisions were made to reduce duty days by generally less than 1 hour, while squeezing breaks to the minimum in most markets. Montana pilots are no longer to be based in out stations but in Billings. They acted as if this were a huge favor when it should have been that way from the start. By the way, the union reps went to great lengths to court the MT pilots' YES vote while ignoring other regions' input for improvement.
Meanwhile, the captain situation became critical. The strategy of recruiting many FOs in order to upgrade them to captains became the company's last hope. It is failing. Management gets upset that FOs leave when they get their 1500 hours, claiming that they used the company for the flight time. Having flown with a lot of these FOs, I can tell you that most of them would have kept their word, but they were treated poorly. Some of them spend 4-5 months in training, waiting at the Holiday Inn up to 2 weeks for a training flight. When they finally are put on line, scheduling and Ops don't make the provisions to ensure that the FO will fly. I see FOs scheduled for over 20 hours of block every week only get 6. The worst part about this is that it is exacerbates the captain shortage by prolonging the upgrade while captain attrition accelerates.
The FOs are leaving because time-wise they are being put seriously behind in their careers. But the HYA and BOS senior management pilots are still stuck in the past. They think that a monetary bond is going to solve this issue as if it were 2008. This lack of forward thinking is choking this once fun airline.