It's the lowest paying regional in an industry that pays far below what people are worth. What do you think? It's the definition of "bottom feeder".

 

GL will get you to places and probably faster than the other "superior" regionals where you get to fly them shiny jets. Guess it really depends on if you can survive the 13k a year pay. I know I can't.

 

There seem to be quite a few pilots who work there who really enjoy their jobs, yet those same pilots also freely admit that Great Lakes is a stepping stone to hopefully a major airline job. I see nothing wrong with a pilot actually enjoying his/her job. A friend of mine is in training right now as a new hire Basilia FO with Lakes. He's looking forward to it, yet fully understands that he's there to build time and move on.

The pilots who bash that place are the ones who've never worked there. For those of you regional plots who bash GLA pilots for working at a bottom feeder: look in the mirror. Major Airline pilots view you no differently. Personally, I'm a 21 year Eagle vet. I've enjoyed my job immensely and wish no ill will on ANY pilot - small regional, big regional, or major.

 

The real LOPEZ flies the beech!

 

Well said.

 

How long did it take for them to get to a major airline?

Do people still believe this is the way the industry works?

 

Lakes is the worst of worst, bankrupt, cant pay their airplanes off, cant afford to pay pilots more if they wanted to. They are so worried about pilots leaving, oh wait if they treated folks well they would not have to force a two year training contract. They do not pay pilots in training, they do not provide a hotel or even transportation prior to such either. I am sorry but if I had to pay say 500 bucks to interview there, then wait 2 months of not getting paid and then work an entire month to pay for the interview cost to fly an airplane with no glass, autopilot, toilet, and live off EAS (job security) no thanks.

 

I'm driving to a major hub in July for a vacation and flying out to LAX on an airbus, rather than take a Great Lakes flight direct that would save me a "2hr drive", haha. I try to avoid them if possible. Stuck in denver one time they kept feeding us BS about getting the airplane "fixed" until past midnight, having passengers line up, then tell them to sit back down, over and over again, with no apology. I stood up for the Px and asked them what they are going to do about their customer service, but they were rude to everyone and just blew it all off. It is truly the worst of the worst and shouldn't exist.

 

Whatever, Mr.expert. You must be a joy to be around.

 

Well, on behalf of the "customer service" you received (or didn't receive based on how it sounds), I'm sorry that situation occurred. Mx issues can be frustrating to deal with on all ends (pilot, passenger and customer service), especially when mx is constantly saying it'll be fixed in 20 minutes. This is the information that was probably being fed to the CS agents and they were doing their best to expedite the boarding process, only to be told that the aircraft still wasn't fixed, nor would it be for another "40 minutes", etc, etc, etc. I do know how frustrating it gets. Chances are, the agents could have had a long day up to that point and basically just "checked out" (not that I condone this).

A CS agent job is essentially to get yelled at by numerous passengers and be blamed for every little problem in that passengers travel that day, and then they have to put on a smile and say "thank you". After a while, this gets old, especially when all of the stuff that's happening isn't their fault yet the pax group takes their frustrations out on them. They were just trying to do their job as efficiently as they could based off of the information they were being provided.

I hope this provides a little guidance in what may have been going on at the time of your trip. Again, I'm sorry for any inconvenience this caused you.