I've been told that you can actually receive retraining in the middle of a check ride, if you miss one or two things. Is that correct? That's not the standard training as far as I know.

 

Ya. I don't really know the details, but I think you can recheck twice during the ride before you fail. Three strikes and you're out. Something like that.

We do not look to fail people, and if you do fail, you can retrain and do the whole ride again.

 

I try to bid/SAP for 10-12 leg four day trips worth 20 hours. My ideal trip is 3 legs the first day, 2 the second day, 2 the third day, and 3 on day 4. Although, it usually works out with 14 legs.

A 5 leg day is not very common in the 900, at least not more than 1 of them in a 4 day trip.

I like for day 2 to be something like OKC to CLT, and then CLT to SAT. 2 legs, lots of hours. Perfect.

 

ALB is one of the worst ones, but it really isn't that bad. We are also changing that one. Sadly, at my last airline, that would be considered to be a decent one.

 

Ok, so I've been reading the regional threads on this and several other forums. I'm going for my interviews next month and what I'm worried about are the things I DON'T know that I DON'T know.

My plan is make it through training, go to one of the "less populated" hubs (dc, the Ohio's) so that I gain line holder quicker, 1000 hours quicker to move up to cpt quicker (as long as there's availability at the location/cpts moving up/out).

But questions like those recently posted by stratapilot (ex.Do you have vacation touch?) remind me that you guys are talking a different language from what I know.

Basically, pm or post here all the knowledge/questions you wish you had known or asked when you interviewed/started.

I've read hundreds of pages in this thread, so I'm not looking for the basics, as I think I have a grasp on that. Like I said, there's just things that I'm not even aware of that might help to know and ask/find out about prior to the interview and (hopefully) accepting a job offer.

As always, thanks for the input.


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I will submit that you're probably overthinking this a bit. If you have a good handle on compensation, upgrade times, bases, and commuting, and how that fits in your life, you've got what you need to make a rational decision to go work for a regional airline. There aren't really any "unkown unkowns" beyond that that are serious deal killers. IMHO

Though, if you have any specific questions, go for it.

 

Vacation touch is a treasured contract provision at airlines that have line bidding. With line bidding your vacation was placed on your schedule first and the your line award was placed on top of that. If any day of a trip touched your vacation the whole trip was dropped. So, ostensibly a guy with a reasonable amount of seniority could turn one week of vacation in to three. Guys with a decent amount of seniority could link two vacation periods and have almost a month and a half off, and guys at the top of the food chain would disappear for a couple of months. Some places would still pay you, some wouldn't. It was glorious. Then came PBS and it ruined peoples lives forever.

 

With SAP, you can make your vacation last 2+ weeks. Even if the trip before a vacation doesn't touch the vacation, we can drop it. Same with a trip after the vacation.

With a vacation, you should be able to get at least 15 days off in a row. If you play your cards right, you can get 18+ days off with a single week of vacation.

Think about this... SAP the first 5 days and the last 5 days of every month off when you don't have a vacation. That will give you 10 days off in a row every month.

 

With the SAP can you essentially clear out your schedule and start from scratch, or are you limited to dropping down to 65 hours and then rebuild from there?

At the risk of opening a can of worms here, what are the not so great things about PSA?

Scheduling Trickery? Vacations paid at 50 seat rate while you're flying a 70+ seater? Other contract shenanigans?

 

Good things:
SAP
100% cancellation pay
"Block or better"
Single blended rate in all airplanes
Bonus, profit sharing
Cheap healthcare
Good hotels
Commuter hotels
Commuter clause
Non rev travel is great
2ish year upgrade
Short reserve times (generally)

Bad
Schedulers hate us
50% DH Pay
Flow is low
Some low credit trips
Reserve rules suck

But, if you want DAY or DCA, reserve times are REALLY short.


I would not trade any of the good things to fix any of the bad.
Feel free to add to the lists.