BOS Based Big Sky
 

Hi everybody,


Just wondering if anyone here is BOS based flying for Big Sky? They had a career fair I think it was August at a hotel downtown. It looked like a pretty good gig and with very attainable minimums. I'm from BOS so I was thinking it'd be a great place to work.

The routes look pretty cool and I can imagine you must have pretty few overnights. Just curious on how ya'll like the company and flying the Beech?

uvmflier

I don't know that I would call Big Sky "a great place to work", but if you are low time and can't land a job with another carrier (particularly if you live in BOS), it's a good entry point into the industry.

Get in, get time, and get out. It's not a place I would stick around more than 6-12 months, unless you are dead set on building PIC time in the 1900.

American Eagle is a better bet for Boston... and their new mins are 400 / 50 multi. First tier regional vs. second tier regional. BOS would be a really fun base though and AE will guarantee that you get it.

Agreed - Don't know too much about Big Sky, but enough to understand you wouldn't want to make it a long-term relationship there.

My advice: Go somewhere good - anywhere - no matter where in the Country it takes you. The change in scenery might do you good, you'd be with a good company, and you might just enjoy it!

When anyone mentions Big Sky, the term "nomad" comes to mind...

being that i am currently employed at big sky and based in BOS i would say that Josh's post is the exact attitude to have looking into the prospect of working at big sky.

i cant say that i think eagle is a much better bet to be BOS based with, they have their own set of issues that kept me away, and we have a bunch of captains here at big sky that left AE to come here. neither is really a place i would stay for longer than you had to but at least at big sky you can get that PIC time real quick, altough you are definitely going to sacrifice some things for it (mainly a decent QOL).

Calling American Eagle a "First Tier Regional" is just plain funny.

Big Sky in MSS
 

Here is a question for any Big Sky pilots that fly the Northeast routes. Does Big Sky train any of the ground people in these airports to deice you? I was commuting out within the past week and listening to the girl behind the counter tell this big teether TSA supervisor that nobody had ever trained them how to deice and they had to spray one of your aircraft that morning. Scary stuff

Is it an on-going hiring for street captains in BOS or do they hire sporadically (spelling) when openings become available? It would be something I'd pursue for sure in the close future. On-demand lifestyle is starting to get the best of me and I want to be back home near my family and friends.

what station are you referring to beech?

hiring for both street capt's and fo's is ongoing at this point with no real end in sight.

lol, geeeees

hey mccube whats a regular day like for you over at big sky?

right now a regular day around here involves a lot of sitting around. the schedules are pretty inefficient, so in an average trip you will have at least 2 days where you only do 2-3 legs. the day will end either mid afternoon and start early the next day or with one of the last flights out to do the afternoon flight the next day, for a 15 hour layover in an outstation nearly every night. this is nice if the layover is in one of the better cities and you have other things such as school work or such to do. can be terrible if you're in some of the other less than desirable hotels.

hope this helps a little bit, feel free to ask me anything else, happy to share some info.

Upgrade time?

Do people commute to BOS or crashpad?

Are you on reserve, or is that your line? if so what are you averaging a month for hours? Arent you going to places like bum up state ny a lot?

Is Big Sky going to be expanding the flying out of BOS? It's just a rumor but I have heard that some of the EAS routes that Colgan has could be going to Big Sky.

"I personally believe that Big Sky.............."

Upgrade time is pretty much as soon as you meet ATP mins. and feel ready. The majority of pilots here commute, some from as far away as Seattle and Phoenix.

My first month on the line I had a mixed reserve schedule, a few reserve days and mostly scheduled flying. Right now there is not a single reserve line for FO's, as a matter of fact there's not even a single day of FO reserve coverage. Now thats great for FO's but sux for the CA's that are stuck sitting in the right seat to cover the holes. The answer to how much flying am I doing a month is my biggest problem right now. I'm only flying about 50 hours a month. Like i said before, great if you enjoy getting paid to not do a whole lot, not so great if you're trying to build time. Good thing is we have rigs in our contract 2:1 duty 3.95:1 trip, so it prevents you from getting shafted with inefficient schedules. Lines right now have been 5 on 2 off, leaving some people very unhappy. So that means we do about 4 overnights a week, i would say about 2 of those are spent in places i don't wanna be, Watertown, NY being one of them, the other 2 in decent places, Fredricton, New Brunswick, CA being a nice one. The company is still trying to get staffing levels to where they need to be, training dept. has been running1-2 classes a month since last year and there's no real end in sight just yet. Once we get the people we need, and hopefully retain them, the lines should be improving.


I'm not aware of any Colgan flying, but we've been picking up more and more Commutair routes on a continuous basis. Just started Plattsburgh and Saranas lake last week. CVG base opens in 10 days with the EAS routes from Regions. Theres a lot going on here, hard to keep track of it all, and right now there is no end in sight to the growth potential of the company.

....................????????????????????

hey mccube, whats a line look like for you on a month to month basis at big sky, if you mind me asking?

How come Big Sky pilots in Boston come into work with unpressed shirts, hair sticking up, North Face jackets, ski parkas and every other kind of non-uniforms item and just generally don't look like airline pilots? Frustrating of course, as a pilot who takes pride in my uniform.

Not that this only happens at Big Sky (it doesn't...I've seen some of our newer FO's at CMR), but I was in BOS a day or so ago nonrevving and a Big Sky guy with an un-tucked shirt (in full uniform) sat up at the gate yapping loudly on his cellphone about how much beer he drank last weekend with old highschool friends with both feet up on the chair across from him. He was also sucking on an empty water-bottle like a baby. What gives? Sorry, rant over.

Where are guys going AFTER BigSky? Are a lot of their Captains going to regionals? I ask because at AWAC we have a ton of guys that come from Great Lakes... and most of them had a tough time going anywhere with their 1900 CA time, so they are here now. Many of them are CA's now... I imagine it was a little bit different a few years back... but where are a lot of the guys going?

Also--Mccube I'd like to take a look at the lines at BigSky too (BOS) if you have them avail.

Not sure about Big Sky, but I know two Colgan B1900 Captains that are now with Continental.

lines in BOS are a mixed bag. Combos of 3, 4, 5 day trips can be expected. This month for instance (a big month for us being 28 days) i have 13 days off with a week off that started yesterday. its tough to say what typical lines are line since they are so all over the place, and we are pressing really hard to have the scheduling process "tweaked" so to say.

thats what you get when the company tells ya theres no real dress code, just a black or navy jacket. there are definitely guys who abuse this and look like complete garbage. what are you gonna do, you get what you pay for? while proportionally you may find more guys looking like schleps around here thats not to say that i havent seen guys look like garbage from everywhere else as well. some people take pride in putting that uniform on and looking respectable, myself being one of them. i cant change the others, but i think completing flights and getting people from point a to point b safely is a bigger concern for us then worrying about what all the SJS'ers think about how we look.

i could get into this and explain to you why a guy would be in the terminal having a conversation on his cell phone, but ill spare the details. needless to say if that was the case about how he looked and the conversation he was having that is disgustingly unprofessional but again i will say im sure big sky isnt the only place you will see that happen. some people just have their head buried so far up their....that they just don't seem to listen to themselves. again i go back to this is what you get when you are in the hiring crunch we are, its hard to convince real solid candidates to come work here when they can go fly a big shiny jet somewhere else.

in the last couple weeks we've had 2 guys hired at northwest and one guy at airtran. last month someone went to spirit while others leave for different corporate gigs back home. the important thing is people are moving on once you get that all mighty PIC, and the PIC you get in the mighty BEECH seems to be acceptable to the big boys.

as for posting the lines, im not gonna do that, ill just say we have something like 30 lines out of boston the have a handful of 5 on 2 off's some 4 on 3 off's some with stretches of 6 on week off. they use a very archaeic(sp.?) scheduling system around here so efficiency certainly isnt our middle name. we dont have sabre or any other kind of system, all microsoft excel (yes you read that right, microsoft excel)

all in all its not a bad place to work, we have a better contract than the majority of places. and just compare our payscales to that of great lakes and gulfstream, you will notice we definitely set the bar for 1900 drivers. second year CA pay is very livable and its a stepping stone not a final destination.

How long is upgrade?

pretty much as soon as you hit atp minimums you can upgrade if your ready. so with that said if you get hired here with 250 hours its gonna be close to 2 years, if you have 1200 hours coming in it could be 6 months.

Yeah, I heard GLA and GIA do the same type of thing.....cool.

Oops, question was already answered.