If you never been out of USA,still live with parents,dont speak or try to speak Spanish,and dont have a open mind or a positive attitude then yes it would be bad.

BTW Bacardi Rum is not originally from in PR....

 

for some of you you might enjoy it but i didnt. The beach and booze and women were fun for a bit but I actually grew out of the whole party scene when i left college 5 years ago. Im sure some people still enjoy that stuff and its great but i didnt. The cultural differences were nice. I enjoyed the food and the lifestyle. I didnt enjoy being singled out as a white person walking across the ramp and being questioned about it by the puerto rican tsa agents while puerto rican crew members were able to do what they wanted with out being harrassed. I didnt enjoy having to go next to the (african american) store when i went to get gas. I loved the flying and all the islands but there are more important things in my life and i left for them. If that makes me some imature stupid kid then Im sorry but I am happier now.

 

So you dont like hispanics or blacks?

 

Whoa guys hold on. Please don't turn this into a racial thing...It's not. It is a post to portray flying with American Eagle Airlines at its San Juan base.

1. It is unfortunate that "Killer51883" had some bad experiences while he was based down there. Again, the story is different for everyone. For me, well, I met my wife of 10 years now when she was a flight attendant fresh of the schoolhouse. I could have gone to the "RJ" as a Captain years and years ago, but I chose to stay there and enjoy my seniority.

2. Commuting. I'd say that half the pilots in SJU commuted when I was there. As I said, google is your friend. You will see that almost every US airline flies to San Juan. American of course has the monopoly at SJU, they do 72% of the flying there, they fly direct to several cities in the mainland including MIA,MCO,JFK,EWR,DFW,RDU,ORD and a bunch more. Delta flies to MCO and ATL that I know of. US Air/AW to CLT, PHL, etc. United, NW, JB, Spirit, Continental...they ALL fly to SJU. Guys, commuting in general sucks but I dont recall SJU being particulary harder than my commute today. Smart planning is the trick here, have a Plan A,B and even a C. I've had some close calls, but in 16 years of flying so far I've never missed an assignment.

3. I am not sure where "Killer's CrashPad" was at but I lived right by the beach in Isla Verde (the beachside area) and my experience was the constant presence of tourists and locals alike having fun at the beach. Not sure what afro-american place he meant. I guess what I am trying to say is that everyplace you go you are responsible for watching your back and take care of your safety. I mean I do that everywhere I go on my layovers. San Juan to me was not any different than anywhere else.

4. The infamous Customs clearance walk. Well, on a given day you might find yourself doing this 3 to 4 times a day tops. Eagle is at the Gate 1 area and the Custms/INS station is past gate 12. The bus will pick you at the A/C and drive you to the curbside and offload everyone into a sterile area where you will then go up escalators and proceed to walk through a very long hallway with 3 moving walkways (sometimes they are turned off) and you will reach customs after walking anywhere from 4 to 7 minutes. You will clear INS and then take the escalator downstairs to then clear Customs and walk outside into the terminal to then go through the TSA and walk again back to the Eagle facilities in Gate 1. The process in all can take anywhere from 18 to 25 minutes depending on how many crewmembers are clearing at the same time. Be advised that Eagle blocks their flight with 50 minutes in between when one of these walks are required (or at least they used to when I was there).

4. You will see beautiful women down there (no offense to the female readers of this post), going to the beach was a feast for your eyes, LOL. Not to mention that you will also work with some of the prettiest FA's you will ever see. But be advised, they know you're down there "temporarily" and therefore are very skeptical to dating someone from "out of town". At least that was the consensus when I was there. But, I also know of several guys that actually met someone and chose to stay there for a while and I can count quite a few succesful relationships that developed and survived as well.

Again, in closing San Juan could be the blast of your life if you just give it the chance, specially you young guys starting in this business with no ties, fiancees, closeness to Mom and Dad, etc. It will give you a whole new perspective on flying (ohhh those flights to Port of Spain in the dead of the night crossing 600nm of open ocean in total darkness, no VOR, no NDB, no terrain to identify, just black, black, black LOL). You will polish those stick and rudder skills landing in very short runways with strong crosswinds. You will love searching for iguanas after you land in SJU, gosh where those big or what LOL.

One thing is for sure, you will be flying customers that come here to vacation, totally unlike the regional flying you'll do stateside. People come to the caribbean to have fun and pay for it. You'll be a part of that and get paid (albeit not a lot) while doing it.

Last but not least, it is my understanding that YOU can now select your domicile when you interview with Eagle. So it really is you guy's choice to come to SJU or not.

Check the site: www.americaneaglecareers.com

Hope that this helped you guys again, Flytank

 

You know as soon as I posted that I relized I was wrong, dooh. Anywho, your exactly right, this is a great job if your young (me) single (me) loves to party (me, but know my limits) and want to live in a different part of the world (me, orginally from Boston). Umm, yeah, adding up the logbooks now. It's just too bad for that long, long upgrade time. We'll see how it goes.

 

Where do I sign up?!! I live in Orlando and I'm seriously considering AE when I graduate this December. I know that I could have MIA or SJU as a base and hopefully it wouldnt be too bad of a commute. And yes, Puerto Rican women are beautiful!!!!....I couldnt ever get tired of seeing them!!!!......

 

Correct me if I am wrong, Do you fear Hispanics and Black people, cause if you do You are one culturally Challanged and Narrow minded person.. Good luck with trying to succeed in this business if you are really a Bigot..

 

I have no idea how this quickly degraded into me being a racist wich i deffinately am not. The coment was simply about a store wich was in carolina south of the airport wich i was embarassed to see because of the name. My expirence in puerto rico was not very different than those of my friends who are still down there or have left already. It was not my first time away from home nor will it be the last. It just wasnt the place for me and I simply was trying to express my oppinion about the operation down there.

 

Dang,Use spellchecker next time son.

 

They do have a sweet factory down in PR...but yea it was born in Cuba.