scrtlvrby

Geesh...........finding recent information about Piedmont is difficult. The little information that I have found is pretty old. One thing I would like to know more about is commuting. Their bases don't exactly seem commuter friendly. I live in the Pittsburgh area and it looks tough to do from here. Also, any recent information about Piedmont regardless of the content, good or bad, would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for your time.

piper338

Check out the PDT rumors thread. The information out there from 07' is still accurate accept morale is lower we have fewer planes, old equipment that is timing out with no plans for the future, the one base that was commutable closes at the end of this month.

If you can get on anywhere else do yourself a favor and do it.

The only good things I can think of, the planes although old are fun to fly, good crews. But the planes are going away so will the crews. PDT is a sinking ship still letting passengers onboard to put their careers at risk.

higgi8f6

There is a fairly accurate thread
http://www.airlinepilotforums.com/re...umors-281.html
I'd say you could read the last 10 to 20 pages to get an idea. You hit the nail on the head when it comes to commuting. We are anti-commuters. Although we do have a commuter clause in our contract, I believe you have to list 3 flights before your report or last flight into base and when most bases only operate 4-5 flights a day to each hub, that's kinda difficult.

As for Piedmont, there has been little to no movement in the past 2 years. I've been here for 4. The reason we are hiring is because FO attrition is through the roof. I've talked to at least 3 who have turned in their 2 week resignations this week alone. CAs really aren't leaving. Maybe that says something. Our contract is not the greatest but it isn't the worst. The problem with it is the language. There are alot of quotes such as "the company will try" or "the company will do it's best" meaning the company can decided when they want to follow the contract and when they don't have to. We do have cancellation pay and we do have a minimum daily guarantee so if you sign in to work, you are paid 4 hrs per day minimum. And you can't beat flying the Dash-8. It truly is an amazing aircraft and the sh!t it can do in the right hands still amazes me.

As for the bad. Reserve sucks for commuters. You will get one set of 4 days off followed by 3 sets of 2 days off. Also, even if they assign you a 5pm report, you will still go on call around 7am requiring you (if you commute via plane) to be in base the night before. Our only commutable base is closing. From PIT you could consider driving to MDT and at least get a little more time at home. We have also been in stalled contract negotiations for over 2 years. We keep making offers and the company wants to sign the same concessionary contract that dates back to pre-2000 or close I think. We just started using TAMDAR which is a poor mans ACARS. It automatically reports our times off the gate. Unlike most airlines that use door closure or moving the plane 10ft, we have to move the airplane 50ft. In LGA, that can take 45 min to push. But we still have to report the door closure time per DOT requirements. Also in outstations where you power off the gate vs pushing back, you are responsible for passengers during engine starts but until you move the aircraft you are not paid. So in theory you could have an engine fire or failure and have to abort a start or evacuate an aircraft and all you will get from the company is a pat on the back... It might sound trivial and you might think it's only 2 or 3 minutes but when you operate 6 legs a day, 2 or 3 minutes add up quickly and its work that you got hired to do and up until recently were paid to accomplish and now they have changed their mind.

Also, take whatever is told in the interview or management here with a grain of salt. I was told Q400s and short upgrade. Didn't happen. We were told we would be upgrading all summer. Last upgrade class was in Feb. Told the TAMDAR would go off door closure, it doesn't. In the past 10 years we have gone from a fleet of over 100 aircraft to a fleet of 44.

In addition, management always needs to blame somebody so be ready to stand up to them. I was accused of terminating an aircraft for the evening and the morning crew came out and "the tire was off the rim (chief pilot's words)" and he was curious how I could have missed that. Asked if I did a post flight walkaround. I said I put the engine inlet plugs in but it was the last day of a 4 day and I was ready to go home. Anyways, come to find out they had a flat tire, not a "tire off the rim" and apparently they needed someone to blame because they took 8 cancellations because they couldn't get a tire down there til the afternoon. Oh and this was right after we returned several planes to their lessors.

If you need a quick place to gain 121 experience, my opinion is come here. But promise yourself in 1 year you will be somewhere else. I got hired right before the downturn in the economy and live in base and like where I live. I don't want to make a lateral move so I'm probably just gonna stick it out. You make up your own mind.

Hope I was detailed enough for you. PM me if you have any other questions. I'll try and give you an honest and unbiased opinion.

Colnago

I honestly can't chime in because I don't work there, but I have a friend who faced some serious crap from the company and was threatened to get fired for calling in fatigued (justifiably so as he had worked two 15 hr days back to back) on the last day of his four-day. The pilots there don't exactly get along with management.

PDTpilotXX

I can assure you they are going after anyone that calls out for that reason. There have been a couple of others besides your buddy that have faced the same and worse because of a fatigue call.

porqueno

I'm guessing that you don't have the flight time for Republic if you live in Pit and are looking at Piedmont. Commuting for reserve at Piedmont really sucks. You will do a lot of 6 on two off and have to commute on both of your days off if you chose to go home. If you can deal with that it is a good place to build your flight time.

BSOuthisplace

My advice isn't for the OP, it's for everyone who responded. You all should write down a generic rant on how horrible Piedmont is that way when someone starts a thread like this you can copy, paste. Seems like it would save a lot of time.

crabinow16

Hey man so Assuming from your post that yo are low time. I had low time (and still do comparatively) when I got hired. PDT is a great place to come to because they do hire us low timers. The crews are great to fly with and almost every captain has something that you can learn. Overall it has been great so far. I am getting time, 121 experience and all that. Now the flip side of things. I have not had a bad experience with management but you hear about it you see things that are going on and you come to realize that most of what they say is true. It is all different due to personal experience. I was in the April class and one of the capt upgrades was going for the first time after being here 7 years. This capt had started upgrade training right before the first rounds of the downturn a few years back. The worst place here is not knowing what the future holds. Not knowing if they are going to invest in new aircraft or if they are just going to let them all time out. I am putting in a year and when it comes time for me to schedule CQ my roommate(who was in my new hire class) as well as some others are going to really sit down and hash it out about whether or not we want to continue or go look somewhere else

hom307

scrtlvrby, dude man, apply to ASA on airlineapps.com, you can go onto the expressjet certificate and be based in ewr or ord....boom! i just gave you two possible commutting choices (not simple ones but a hell of a lot better than trying to get from pit to cho). on paper, piedmonts commutable flights will make you wanna take two very sharp #2 pencils and poke your eyes out!

scrtlvrby

I appreciate all of the replies and I've come to realize that this board has a lot of great information and people on it.
Before I posted anything about Piedmont I believe that I read nearly every post and nearly every thread including the "Rumors" thread. Maybe a little OCD. So, thanks to all of you that suggested it. I did get a lot of good information from it. It didn't take long to understand how most of their pilots feel about the company.

My times are 1600/82. I suppose, I consider myself a low-timer because of the multi. Getting twin time at our school is tough and few and far in between. I realize that I am much more marketable at 100 hours of multi but it's no easy task getting that time because of lack of students and lack of money to pay for any more flight training. I know that I will eventually get the time but do I want to wait that long? Can I afford to wait that long? So yeah, my current dilemma is whether or not I take the 1st offer I get or wait for a better company. I know that some of you can relate with me when it comes to barely getting by. How many cups of ramen noodles haven I eaten over the years? How many cheap beers did I have while my friends were drinking the good ones? It hurts my head thinking about it!