IN-N-OUT Burger?

 

I wish, some overpriced Sheraton

 

That would have been awesome. Are they still saying that upgrade will be 3-4 years?

I'd love to hear LaMar or Gene try to make up a viable reason to pay pilots on the largest and most profitable aircraft less money than those on the CRJ.

 

I am curious to see what happens to the pay scale if they do get rid of the 700s. I would hope that the 400 scale would just shift over to the 700 scale, but, yah, that won't happen.

With the upgrade, I had forgotten that they said 3-4 years. I don't believe anyone who says less than 5-6 and I am planning on 7. I hope they are right, but I doubt it. I am thinking that reserve is going to be a better part of a year with this age 65 thing, and I am planning on some stagnation for a little while.

Start ground school tomorrow, wish me luck.

 

Because flying hand flying a B1900 for 12 legs on a Saturday is fun and that pilot loves their job. Their engines whir and hum during flight.

The jet jockeys are a miserable lot pushing buttons, wait, hand flying a constant speed climb up to 10k, whoop dee doo!!, pushing buttons until 200 feet IMC or 1000 feet VMC on arrival. Unlike their engines, the jet jockey keeps whining after shutdown.....

 

Yep, that answer was already given;

Yep, agree with ALMOST everything you say, EXCEPT one;

How much flying have you done in Mexico? There are times when I have gone there everyday of a four day trip. Of the 30 or so places my company flies there, I can only think of 4-5 that have radar coverage in the terminal area. And yep, most airports have use non precision approaches, often times a DME arc approach. Now, I ALREADY agreed that the turbo prop flying is more difficult. But saying that the RJ ALWAYS goes into a radar airports isn't true. And even though Mexico City has it, doesn't mean that it makes your life easier. MEX had the MATEO transition that was a much higher workload for a radar environment than non radar.

Also, when I based in CVG it wasn't uncommon to do 6 legs (I know, not THAT many) in and out in the FRJ. Never more than 50 minutes gate to gate, never getting above the low 20's.

 

As of Febuary 2008, the highest pilot pay appears to be a Boeing Business Jet pilot. Avjet Services, the BBJ subsidiary, is starting it's Captains at $237,000 a year and it's F/O's at $169,000 a year. A friend of mine who fly's for Avjet said he knows a BBJ Captain who is making closer to $350,000, but he's been there since they bought their first BBJ.

The bottom line is, airline pay continues to go down, while private parties are paying their pilots record pay. Go figure. . .

 

The reason behind our 76 seat turboprop being a lower payscale than the 70 seat RJ is pretty simple: When we got the plane, it was for 70 seats. I believe, and I'm pulling from really old memory here, that the aircraft was certified to 74, so we simply made our payscale go up to 74 seats.

Interesting fact: It was a pilot that pushed management to go to 74 seats and pay the pilots more. Our managers hemmed and hawed, made up lame excuses and basically said 'no'. 3 years later they put in the extra 4 seats and patted themselves on the back for coming up with such innovative revenue producing ideas.

A few years later, they did some model testing with some of our MVP passengers, and decided that they could squeeze another 2 seats in there. This is where I draw on old memory again, so I may be a bit off, but I believe that required 'buying' a higher gross weight for the aircraft (this was when avg pax weight went up by 20 lbs or so). Anyway, the Union basically said ok to the 76 seat thing since we were coming up on the amendable date of our contract and that would be included as part of the negotiating process. Interestingly, the new cabin configuration with the 76 seats shifted the weight forward (waaaay fwd cg) as well as caused some FA logistical problems (her butt bumping into seat 1B's face when it came time to do service). I suspect that is why we only have a handful of these 76ers.

So there you go. We now have a 76 seat airplane with low costs and a lower crew rate than the 70 seat RJ. Evolution of the Q400 created this situation at Horizon.

Another myth busted.

 

That's the truth! You stole my thunder there, buddy

 

I was just introduced to In-N-Out on an SFO layover this week...I'm foaming at the mouth for another