jtroypaige

Would any kind soul or souls mind giving me their thoughts at this thread below?

Wanted to try to keep it as succinct as possible instead of having two different posts to read through.

Air Whisky Vs. PSA Info

Tester130

I will give you my thoughts as I had pretty much the same question. In the end though, a lot on where you go will depend on where you live as living in base or having an easy commute is a huge factor on your quality of life with a place.

AW is a good company with a good reputation. They have one of the biggest bonuses in the industry, and they have some of the best soft pay out there. Their medical is also better than most (including majors). Before they announced the United deal they lost a lot of pilots so right now they are in a hiring frenzy to rebuild their ranks. Once they do, the hiring will slow down to their attrition level. They are also rumored to have a large pool of senior pilots that will not be going anywhere, but right now are starting to get short on captains so upgrades are happening. They are going down to just the two bases but might open a third at one of their maintenance locations. As they rebuild their ranks some guys will still get a pretty rough ride with schedule changes and junior man calls. Right now the upgrade time is good, but if you do not get hired on soon, and get hired close to when they have filled up their pilot pool that upgrade will slow down. If the bases work for you and you can hire on real soon, I think they are not a bad place to go. Some questions I would be asking is how big they are going to get, how big are they now, are they filling their classes, and what their attrition has been.

PSA is where I ended up going as I could live in base and that really is huge. The soft pay isn't nearly as good but the schedule adjustment period makes up for it. PSA is also a growing company and will continue to be for the foreseeable future. Combine that with a relatively high attrition and upgrade time will stay low. Being owned by American adds a bit more security and there is the flow if you don't leave earlier (the majority will be gone well before they flow). Reserve times for FOs is very short (a month or two at the junior bases and more in CLT and TYS). I've not regretted coming here.

Let me know if you have any specific questions.


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chrisreedrules

PSA hands down...

Moxie

Tester130 when you mention “attrition” are guys quitting or failing IOE or check rides? Just wondering....

AboveAndBeyond

We send dozens of pilots to legacy airlines. We had months this summer that we were sending more pilots to Delta than were flowing to AA. I have been here 3 years and have months that I move up 15 spots on the seniority list. We have junior FOs going to places like Spirit and JetBlue. I think FedEx and UPS have taken a liking to PSA pilots lately with lots getting interviews and job offers.

Attrition here is a good thing. Lots of movement every month, even from the top. I think the average per month is probably 25 people leaving. A few are very junior, but those are often gone before they even hit their first seniority list. The attrition that we are talking about is current pilots going to a major airline.

Moxie

Cool thanks, how do military guys usually fare with upgrades and movement to the majors? I have about a year left in the military and going to have about 3000 rotary hrs when I separate (going to do the RTP obviously). Does anyone have a good idea how long the RTP takes if I have about 130 FW hrs? All SE time.

Thanks

AboveAndBeyond

Fixed wing guys go after a few months here, usually. Especially the single seat guys. Rotor guys...well...don't know how much the majors like them. I've heard anecdotal things, but not sure on a whole. May want to ask around. There were 6 military pilots in my new hire class. C-5 pilot went first, then the fighter guys. Only one still around is the helo pilot.

Moxie

Folks just looking for some insight. I noticed that there has been some talk about failures in initial training? Some/most of who are RTP guys, what is it with (if you know) the RTP guys? Do they not perform as well? Or is flying an airplane in the 121 environment that different/challenging? Are they not that motivated? Do you know if these guys are mostly military? I plan on doing the RTP and not expecting it to be a cake walk, but just trying to get some insight.
Thanks

Strykerinf

Mostly external factors that get in the way- life, family etc