Pinnacle training schedule
 

Well, I got through the interview and got an offer. Now - do I take the job?

Wondering if any recent hires can tell me about the class schedule. Do you get weekends off? Is travel home possible/discouraged, etc? How long will it REALLY take to get from the first day of class to OE?

Thanks for your input.

I just finished my second week. You do get weekends off when the training department has their stuff togeather. Oddly enough this weekend we are holding class on sunday. As far as travel home goes, you have to have five consecutive days off and permission from some higher up to get a travel pass because you are not an employee until you pass your checkride. Classes are from 8:00 am to about 4:30 with an hour and a half lunch break. Since I am still in ground school I can't say as to the length of time from start to finish. However; I spoke to a guy who started on July 2 and he said his checkride was scheduled for August 26.

The schedule is 8-5ish Monday-Friday. When you are off (at night, or Saturday and Sunday) you are off, they don't care where you are. They don't, however, provide non-rev travel unless you have at least 5 days off. Those 5 day windows SOMETIMES happen during your CPT/SIM schedule. The first four weeks is ground school (all the written tests are a breeze) followed by the oral exam. The next four weeks (depends on the individual schedule you get with your sim partner) is all cpt/sim. You will have 6 sessions in the GFS (touch screen cockpit layout) followed by 8 sim rides. After that, LOFT, then OE. You will be bounced around duing OE until the date your base award takes place.
The ground school instructors are great guys, but a little frazzled by having to teach a new class every week. Everyone is really nice and trying their best to help you out by providing personalized attention when you need it.

You are not even an employee there for the 10 weeks of training, so NO travel benefits. 4 wks ground school (usually weekends off), 4 wks sim(3days on/4 off) then 2 wks OE. Ground school is of not much value (lunch time is fun). The hotel is probably the worst you will ever stay in during your career (and sharing a room). They have very high turnover with ground instructors (you will end up knowing plenty of info from the _____ they were furlowed from). Brad, the manager of training recently jumped ship too. Extremely high turnover within all departments for some odd reason. Company won't pay Flightsafety for instructors and thus try to do it themselves. Great pilot group but unfortunately struggling under NW. That's great that you are gung-ho for this place but there are better alternatives. The jets look really neat but... Just trying to warn you friend.

Navajo31,

I'm assuming that you're flying a 'ho somewhere, from which airport?

i will clarify a few things in this post since traveljunky was either fired from pinnacle, or he is a disgruntled worker (all of his post are pinnacle bashing and he has contributed nothing to this message board except that). he is correct. you are not an employee till you pass your checkride. ground school is what you make it. i learned a lot during the ground school portion and felt very good about being prepared for my oral exam. ground school isn't hard, but you get out what you put into it. the hotel is the worst you will ever stay at.. nuff said about that. most of the instructors now are line pilots who were bought off. and brad was a furloughed delta guy who was called back, so if returning to your previous job is "jumping ship" then yeah, i guess he did. we are a great pilot group, but far from struggling under nwa. we are struggling because of ourselves, not from outside sources. nwa signed a 10 year contract with us, delta signed a 10 year contract for us, so the business is there. what we need is to stick together as a group and force management to see things our way. i feel very optimistic that this management will see it our way by the end of october.

Once again, traveljunky you don't know what the hell you are talking about. Some of the new hires went to St. Louis for some of their sims with Flightsafety instructors, and came back to Memphis to do their checkride. I would know since I had a new hire in the jumpseat not long ago for his fam ride.

So - did I read that right? No non-reving home on the weekends? Still not a bad deal but why not go home and relax if flights are open.

You can only only non rev when you have 5 days off in the row. Like between ground school and CTP

So basically a newhire is stuck in MEM, sharing a room at what is apparently the worst hotel in the country for at least four weeks? And they get $400/week?

So much for the pilot shortage....

There is NO pilot shortage......
Labor supply and demand still shows there are plenty of pilots out there but it is on the up swing.

Just tell the hotel staff you want a single room. They'll give it to you if they have one. Worked for me.

Can you stay at home if you have a home in mem?

We had 2 people in our class that did that, no one seem to have a problem with it.

So you can't fly home (without paying for it) until you have passed your check ride??? What if your married with kids... are suppose to not see them for 4-6weeks while in training???

thats what i did, my wife flew out half way through training and we spent a couple days looking for houses in mem.

4-6 weeks..is NOT the end of the world... and YES i had kids ... and have been gone a hell of alot longer than that..... if its a deal breaker dont take the job.

Yep, it works for some and doesn't work for others.

Actually being gone 4-6 weeks without visiting my family is a deal breaker for me. I'm not going to leave them for that long just to make 19k for that job.

If I ever do decide to become an airline pilot I will most likely go with an airline that has training within a few hours drive along with living in domicile.

Thanks for the info.

Good for you! When on their deathbed, no one has ever said, "I wish I spent LESS time with my family."

What kind of hours are guys getting on with? I just sent them my resume on airlineapps and recieved the email back saying they would like me to gain more hours. Im at 550 and 135 multi. I dont have a bridge program or anything so i guess that is why i got turned down? Thanks for the help.

Lowest I heard in my inteview group was 750. He also had FE time.

Several guys in my class with 600TT or less

I think I've heard somewhere that 700 was the magic number, but it sounds like 6 hundo might do the trick.

On that note, we all make sacrifices for future opportunities, including having to be away for 6-8 weeks. However, after you get done with training and are sitting on reserve, time at home is going to be pretty scarce, but if you live at that base it will make that time home last a little longer. So a 6-8 week payment up front is can be worth it to allow you to live at your domicile and not have to commute or move. It's not easy for anyone to be away from their loved ones for that long, but sometimes sacrifices are what it takes to make things happen. So if you can find an airline that happens to have a domicile where you live and does their training there, more power to you.
These are the kinds of sacrifices that can also include working at a regional airline in general. Call it making an investment in the future. For some, it’s worth it; for others, not so much.

Is the hotel really THAT bad? Do people ever get a room to themselves? How is the neighborhood?

The hotels that Pinnacle stays at MEM are either Homestead (long term), and Radisson (right by the airport, for short term). Homestead is pretty close to the training center, Radisson is good for recurrent training because they provide on-demand shuttle to Flight Safety.

The training center/Homestead neighborhood is pretty bad, as is most in the vicinity of MEM airport. History includes carjacks, shootout, break-ins. If you stay inside at night, lock your doors, it's okay. Do not venture outside (i.e. go out for a friendly walk/jog), unless you wear kevlar.

ok, let me tell you a little more. the hotel itself is ok. free breakfast, nice rooms, most rooms have big fridges, stoves, and plates. that all comes in handy during training. take your perdiem check, fill the fridge up and you can eat for the entire time you are their, without spending a lot of your check on eating out. so the hotel itself isn't that bad. the staff could use some help, but they probably live in the same neighborhood and that is why the area is so bad. anything around the airport in mem is trash. within a 5 mile radius of the airport there is a murder, shooting, etc, etc, every night. the area is horrible. so unless you are into gold teeth, shooting the homeys, and picking up the hookers on brooks, then you wont like the neighborhood and i would recomend not venturing out around the area. when i was in training we would drive to germantown to do our shopping. i liked the area so much we bought a house out here, and have been very happy with that decision.

I remember reading something on Pinnacles website (I think) that said that in addition to raising the pay during training they were going to allow trainees free standby passes to fly home during breaks. Some kind of recruitment tool I guess, although I haven't been able to find it lately. Did they discontinue this, or never start it to begin with?