Then they staple us to the bottom with airframe lock for a period of time. When the retirements start going full swing and they see it as an opportunity to keep things staffed top to bottom. Perhaps, maybe, who knows

AAG is not buying MESA. Mesa just went public again with an IPO. AAG owns 7.1% of Mesa. That's just $30 million of valuation after the IPO. If anything, AAG has the investment to keep Mesa interested in the AAG flying. This $30 million investment is really a tiny drop in the bucket for AAG. But United wants and needs Mesa too.

Don't hope for a merger, hope that the Mesa guys get a great deal with flying for UAL and then drop AAG flying. Then hope that AAG has to increase pay and benefits at PSA to grow the pilot group really fast to cover tons of lost CRJ flying immediately.

Your scenario and mine aren’t likely. But it’s fun to say things.

LOL
Airline Pilot Forums-it’s fun to say things!
Not sure why I found this so amusing, must be a slow day.

I also find it amusing that the TITLE of this this new BS thread for PSA gets bumped to the top and bolded every time we say nothing at all...

But such is probably the most important message we can send out of our micro-verse to counter the $5000 referral bonuses, forced upgrades combined with involuntary "voluntary" displacements, long reserve times, low overall trip credit, and industry-lagging captain wages.

Oh, and how could I forget...Total radio silence from our union leaders on anything of substance for 8 months. That calendar count also makes our new reserve rules now 6 months overdue!

I feel like this video sums up everything I’ve read here on the PSA board..

https://youtu.be/F8hCIolZRTU

Excellent. They can't threaten to fire you for describing the work environment, if you've already resigned.

I don't agree with the "I'm going to chase rainbows until I'm 35" viewpoint, but I can't argue with someone realizing five legs a day never leaving the State of North Carolina...except for those 25 mile-long final approach "aerial tours" that take you over South Carolina, is a lot of work for not much pay.

There was some truth in that video, but much of it is exaggerated. This job is what you make of it. He came off very entitled to me.

It’s pretty black and white and everything you want to know about this job is out in the open for anyone who wishes to find out information. There should have been no surprises for him.

Commuting is a CHOICE. I have chosen it and I deal with the fallout from that decision from time to time. I also look at it as a benefit of the job. Being able to commute and live where I want is a benefit to me and my family.

Complaining about not having enough time to eat or only eating airplane basket food is a crock. If you’re hungry, go eat. If we delay a flight because you stood in line for 20 minutes then it is what it is. It isn’t YOUR fault they only have a couple palatable restaurants back in the trailer park that is the E terminal in CLT.

You like to teach? Good. Become a CA and eventually a LCA. You’ll get plenty of teaching in. It’s called career progression, not career regression. Going back to being a CFI is a recipe for it to take even longer to pay off your debt.

Many of us were happier doing something else before the airlines. All the best jobs I’ve ever had are likely in my past (in and out of aviation). But I have a family to feed and bills to pay. It makes me happy to see my family happy. And if I stick with this career path for the remainder of my working life (health-permitting) my family wont just survive, it will thrive. THAT is what this is about. Over 75% of the seniority list retires by 2032 at AA alone. Delta and United have staggering retirement numbers as well. I don’t give a damn about flying airplanes. It’s a job. And it will pay very well in just a few short years.

I agree with the "entitled" vibe, though I chose not to write that. I also agree with not having heartburn about time spent getting food. I do my best to avoid/minimize delays, but I'm not eating crap out of the galley to do so, and I'm not sloughing around a huge cooler bag because no one in Dayton thinks we are humans with physiological needs.

Pray tell though...what are the "couple palatable restaurants" at CLT? I still haven't found one.

The couple places I like are in the main terminal. In the E terminal Whiskey River isn’t bad if you want a burger or salad but the prices aren’t great nor is the wait. The line at Panda Express is usually 50+ deep so I don’t even bother trying to get some steamed veggies and fake chicken.

I guarantee you guys, if he didn't commute, he would still be working here. Sounds to me, the commute got to him, he didn't prepare by brining food. I get it, folks don't like to carry food, but at least you don't hungry. Third, you have to take care of yourself and your body. That's life in general.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Whiskey River is the “least bad” option I’ve found, since they closed the Chili’s. I won’t eat there though, unless I have a couple hours between flights.

Training
 

Has anyone had a problem with not having a partner for IPT's?

Interesting Segway from the crappy food selection in clt to ipt’s...

I was in IPT's but had no partner and no partner was ever given to me so I had to resign, since I did not want to fail, just wanted to be put in another class. What are my chances of getting back in?

They would have assigned you seat support or delayed you going through IPTs, so why did you resigned? We had a guy without a partner and he got seat support


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

But there was a big surprise for him! Commuting is not a choice ... not at PSA, anyways. We threw the senior FOs under the bus. Pilots are being forced to upgrade AND forced out of domicile. And this displacement from domicile is being considered "voluntary" even though it clearly is not. He signed up to commute to CLT. He didn't sign up for a two-leg commute to an outstation. How quickly we forget...

There are even FOs who moved to CLT, bought a house...and now are being forced to commute from CLT for an upgrade they did not want. And the real insult is that they are still stuck paying the mortgage on the house back in CLT, while also paying for their crashpad to sit reserve for 20 days per month at the outstation!

I hear ya, I do. I also do not agree with the forced upgrades.

I don't know why anyone thinks it's chicken, the sign clearly says Panda Express.

Ha!

It’s not “real” chicken. It’s soy protein and chicken byproduct.

Im confused. Why on earth would you resign because of this?

I’m curious in general as to why you think you had to resign? I myself had to get another partner and a seat support a couple days due to getting sick in the simulator portion of my training and was out on unpaid leave two weeks before I was well enough to return. My buddy in IPTs at the time (not my partner) went through what you describe after his initial partner resigned third IPT session in the middle of the lesson just basically threw his hands up “YOU HAVE THE CONTOLS” and apparently sat there while he did the approach by himself and then left I guess. So he had a seat support for his IPTs and I believe a part time training department and line pilot was literally in the left seat the rest of the time for him so he didn’t mind at all.

So you didn’t have to resign, they would give you a seat support. If you’re the type of guy that needs a lot of team association with study habits and doing the callouts I can say it definitely does help but I didn’t only do this with my partner (s) that I had, I also did it with others in my class or watched others as part of my process.

I think you can come back in 6 months or maybe sooner if you go ahead and talk to some of the HR people it’s possible they will let you come back in three months but I don’t know. Good Luck.

Come back? Geez if someone gets frustrated and quits over something as dumb as this, do we really need them carrying the responsibility of flying our customers around?

The Manager would not give me any extra help it was move on with out any extra time and fail or resign? Of course I did not want to fail I have been and A student with 90's and 100's all threw training. I just did not have the same advantage as others being able to study with a partner from the beginning when the partner left even before ground school was over I asked about getting another partner or being put in the next class and that was not offered to me.

You would’ve gotten seat support for the IPTs at least. As for studying that would have been on you to find some of your classmates and study with them. We still had 3-4 groups of IPT pairs studying together once systems was over. As for extra time I don’t know what you mean. With as backed up as we are they can’t accommodate giving people extra weeks to prepare.

There are other reasons he shouldn't be flying our customers around. If it's who I think it is, it was a very good thing that he left. Trust me.

I’m sensing this. It’s a simple thing to produce grades on classroom tests, but one must have the mental fortitude required to perform well in the dynamic environment we operate in. Quitting when times get a little challenging isn’t a good indicator that the skills required to perform our roles on a tough day have been developed yet.

I hope this person is able to develop the ability to perform in less than ideal conditions, but until then, it seems very much they’re chasing the wrong profession. There simply is no quitting after a curveball is thrown one’s way, because you have passengers, co-workers, and investors who are dependent upon you to perform.

And then being forced into a captain position eventually? Hell no.

We had someone in our class have this exact thing happen to them. I thought maybe you were him, but I guess not. Yea, it sucks not having someone to practice flows and calls with, but from what I heard from guys that tried to help this guy out, he didn't know any of the flows and calls. Even if you're forced to study on your own, you should still know the flows. By IPT 6, he still didn't know them, and the training guys suggested that he resign and reapply in 6 months. He also asked about rolling back one class, but they said no. I'm only speculating here, but it seems like maybe they felt that you weren't putting forth enough effort to overcome the disadvantage.

Anyone can say that effort and study were not done to just get rid of the problem but that wasn't the problem, lack of care in management is where the problem is. Most people I know who are captains in the Majors said not having a partner is a set up to fail, why would they say make sure you have a partner for success. All instructors all said why don't you have a partner. If it wasn't important why would they even ask that question. They need to have a better plan earlier on about how to deal with this situation and make it known to the whole class as well and the manager to address this situation immediately. Working in any job is to be a team effort and not want to see anyone fail due to lack of effort on a manager that was notified many times and did nothing to help but take the easy way out.

People who had partners can easily say this but if it were to happen to them it might not have been a good outcome as well.

It is a proven statistic that working with a partner from the beginning will be more successful than not and everyone in this industry knows that, they just do not want to admit its true and they can't be wrong.

If you want to pass you’ll do what it takes to pass. Partner or no partner. Statistics or not.

With that comment, you cannot relate. If that was true, then the airlines should not require partners for training. Was told if you do not have a partner by Sims a person will fail. So why would a person want to go into SIMS without a partner and fail. Bottom line everyone should get an equal chance with all the same tools. Which was not given.....

The range of experience among new hires is significant and despite the best efforts of the trainee and the training department some fail to complete training. I would hope the training department and hiring department do some analysis in an attempt to minimize attrition through improved screening during the hiring process. But for some, “doing their best” is not enough; training partner or no training partner.
And for any low experience pilots who are applying realize that you are placing yourself in a risk/reward scenario; training is tough and you might fail. And if you fail that failure will follow you courtesy of PRIA.
Not to worry, most people work hard and succeed.

Please go somewhere else... Good luck, though. And I mean that sincerely.

As a senior captain, check airman, and APD, I can tell you that they will have someone be seat support for training. It’s up to you to study with classmates outside of the sim and IPT’s. I feel like there’s more to this story. What do you think happens when there’s an odd number of people in class? Or when your partner fails? The training department does what they can. You have to put in the effort. Not having a partner is fairly common.

I would be more concerned if people didn’t fail.

As far as my earlier post, like I said I had multiple partners through the process, even took time off from being unfortunately seriously ill and had to go to the emergency room one night before taking a week off from the illness. When I came back to the sims again I had two more partners since one was a retrain and then the next was additional training and the third a seat support... I studied all the time, I was doing flows and on the telephone doing call outs with line pilots that are friends randomly through conversations .. I was lucky enough to piece it all together along with a lot of work and I passed sims on time with no prior 121.. I do feel like having a sim partner etc is somewhat disadvantageous but I never let it get to my performance... I knew the procedures and I stuck to what the manual and instructors told me. I probably studied 12 hours a day some days in addition to class/IPT/SIM but on average 4-6 hours of preparing and studying materials and had zero problems in the footprint except uncontrollable delays.

I’ve learned that you get out what you put in be it by yourself or as a group and yes ideally both but like in my case I seldom had both on a consistent basis. I know it must feel horrible thinking management just dumped you off to drown in the deep water but I haven’t sensed that at all in my experience and frankly from others as well they did a lot to help.. they even have extra sessions for ground training and IPTs that are encouraged if you have concerns.

This right here. You wasn't the first without a partner, and you will not be the last. There's more to this story.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Honestly if HR was more selective in who they hired, we wouldn't be reading about things like this. It shouldn't be the training department's job to filter out unqualified candidates.

Life isn't fair. If someone doesn't have the ability to step up and do their best despite what at worst case is a minor challenge, they shouldn't even be here for day one of Basic Indoctrination.

God forbid someone prone to quit easily makes it to the line and finds they have been assigned an airplane that has a broken APU, or a deferred autopilot, or worse yet they depart and have an issue that requires some effort to overcome.

You mean like that clown who made that YouTube video about, “the horrors” of regional FO life and how he was going back to instructing?