Freezingflyboy, whats your indentifier, you could be my instructor and I don't even know it.

"Is having a captain with 100 hours on type dangerous, especially when he has a 300-hour pilot sitting right seat"

A low time in type Capt (say 1900 to RJ) with a brand new MAPDer is a scary thought. I'm sure it happens every day. The FAA could care less until there is a crash or incident. That's no reason for me to think we shouldn't be setting our standards higher when it comes to experience levels to be 121 jet airline cockpit crew. Especially, when you consider how JO treats his pilots. I once heard a story of a stand up overnight in SBA where they slept on the plane for five hours cause the company is too cheap to get hotels. Does that still happen? Talk about a setup for fatigue.

It sounds a bit scary to me as well. But I assume Mesa isn't in violation of any FARs. And if they're not, shouldn't the beef be with the government- assuming Mesa's safety record is up to par?

I don't know about the hotel thing. Sounds bogus to me... you know how the rumor mill is.

"Sounds bogus to me... you know how the rumor mill is"

Ahh....I didn't mean for it to sound like a rumor. Story was directly told to me by my friend who was a checkairman on the RJ at Mesa. Then I recommended him at UPS and now he's been a DC8 F/E for about a year.

It was one of those midnight outbounds out of LAS to SBA, CDO, no hotel, and the first flight out of SBA the next day. It was the no hotel part that I didn't get.

Mesa has numerous schedules which involve "no rest" overnight flying. You usually start at 1800-1900, fly around the west, end up in vegas, then depart at 2359 to some small/medium town, arrive at 0230-0330, sleep on the airplane, depart around 0600-0700.

If the layover is greater than 4 hours, they have to get you a hotel, so they seem to program many of these to be 3:52 minutes. Of course the APU stays on to keep the plane warm, and I suspect that the cost of running the it is more than what a hotel would cost anyway. Many crewmembers have "standup kits" of pillows, blankets, and boards to lay across the aisle.

No myth, rumor, or joke. 100% accurate.

Mesa just dropped off my list of airlines to apply to. *crosses his fingers* cooommee on ExpressJet!!!

Don't worry, you'd be on the east coast as a new guy and the trips aren't like that, yet...

I would think east coast legs would be ideal for that. Hotels are more expensive, a lot of early morning departures from outlying communities to hub airports. I do like that you qualified it with yet:D Either way, its still a sh!tty way to treat your employees. I posted a joke airline on another bored called $h!th@le Air and that was one of my gimmicks for a profitable airline (along with trained monkeys for FAs and vending machines instead of lavs:D ) Kind of scary that JO and I think along the same lines....I need a shower.

Wow... I stand corrected on the hotel thing. I assumed from the beginning that being let on a jet with 300 hours came with some major strings attached, so I'm not surprised.

"Of course the APU stays on to keep the plane warm"

Company sent out a memo about APU usage on the 757. $6 per minute is what they said. That's about the same as they pay the flight crew.
Even at $1 per minute for an RJ, it would be cheaper to get three hotels for a four hour sit.