I was a newhire in sim being told it was the best time in years to be hired here because we were getting the 20 CRJ200's with options for 15 more that were likely to come.... a year later I was unemployed and one of the two planes that were delivered was going to Compass, not to mention all 35 Avros and I believe about 15 Saabs were being permanently parked.
Until the planes are here (and there is no guarantee they will all come and no guarantee they will stay) we have what we currently have.... and the options are just that, FAR from being counted on as a sure thing. I have heard the songs in HQ before. If we are going to hire and train so much more soon, why are so many of the instructors being sent to fly the line?

 

SAAB sim instructors returning to line because of decreased training demands.

Some SAAB sim instructors being trained to instruct in CRJ200 and new CRJ900 sims.

 

WOW i have not been on this thread in a while...good see it still going strong!

 

Are you currently at mesaba or have you moved on?

 

Check PM please.

 

Who are you flying for right now? Are you in danger of getting flushed?

 

PSA...I have already been flushed! My last day of reserve is on Saturday....

 

I have personally asked this questions to several FTI's that are being sent back to the line as well as a few management types at the training center. They all seem to have the same reasoning: Its too expensive to keep these guys on as FTI's. We're not at the point were we're running 2-4 classes of 30 ea anymore (where we were when all of those guys went form the line to being FTIs last year).

FTIs get paid a 100 hour garauntee at their current seniority based pay level. For most of them that means a 100 hour of pretty senior CA pay... thats a ton of cash to shell out on the companies side when they're not working. Also recently NWA asked us to get rid of instructors... because as i mentioned before we aren't running 2-4 classes of 30 or more anymore. So instead of laying off instructors hired during the training boom last year FTI's are getting kicked back to the line and sallaried employees (who make less than 100 hours of CA garauntee) are getting those spots, and even some of those guys are having to take week long shifts in crew schedueling.

You're not going to find me applauding management ever, but i give them a tip of the hat for trying to avoid laying off anyone (pilot, instructor or otherwise) in this scenario.

 

I know the reasoning, it didn't need to be explained to me, I was just trying to make the point that newhire training is done for the forseeable future. Other than a few more 900 classes it's all recurrent from here on....

 

hey kinda a random question but are our licenses ICAO or meet ICAO requirements? I have heard people saying they are but always thought that they were just FAA and had to be converted to ICAO. Any Ideas?