I got an email from a buddy last night going through transition training at Pinnacle from the XJ to the 9E side of things...this is what he had to say

"first we all got kicked out of CASS. Getting two days off before training took over 20 emails. They got the name wrong of one of the guys for training and canceled his pay. The contact phone numbers they gave us were some random personal cell phone of someone unrelated to the company in memphis. Most of us only got $20 pay checks. Pinnacle didn't pay any of its bills to its suppliers, so all we have are photocopies of the "important stuff". We've been kicked out of our hotels. Almost all of the instructors have quit. The one we did have, had to excuse himself for a minute when he started crying. He didn't know any of the answers to our questions. About half of the guys here have failed their check rides....mostly for bogus stuff like missing FMA calls, etc. The flows, profiles, and calls are all jacked up, and we've had a different instructor each lesson and all have said to do it a different way. Hahaha. On the plus side I did get a set of wings for my blazer!"

I was also in DSM the other night talking to a Mechanic on the XJ side and he was saying they are in dire need of parts, hence why we are having a larger number of aircraft down for MX, the company just doesnt have the money...he said they used to always carry two spare engines for the 900 and they have been completely scrapped for parts...

Not to mention the unions noneffect on payroll issues...

the end is near or so it seems

 

Huh. Or theyre practicing to be bought by RAH cause has been everyday life for us for the 7 years.

 

Add crew web to the list of things not working. I guess i dont have to worry about going to work if i cant see it.

 

Pretty much what I have been experiencing as well. Only insert 9L for 9E. 3 weeks ago I thought we would see parking Saabs and restructure with United and Delta. Now I think there is a serious chance Pinnacle Corp is a goner, but we'll see. This is starting to really remind me of the whole Indy Air deal. First the CFO quits, then the company can't pay its bills and can't get credit for anything. Now a rumor of a white night (Skywest) is floating around. Just replace Branson with Skywest and it is deja vu all over again.

However even Independence Air paid its people properly to the end.

I hope for everyone here that only the Saabs get parked. My gut is telling me Pinnacle will be lucky to hang onto the Pinnacle 200 and Mesaba 900/200 flying and there is a good chance the company liquidates. The reason for this is I don't see how Pinnacle is going to get financing to get through bankruptcy on its own. If the Qs and Pinnacle 900s go back to Bombardier, what assets do you have to get Dip financing with? Delta owns all the other aircraft. Why should anyone finance us in bankruptcy when they could let us liquidate and buy the pieces they want?

Hope this works out for the best for everyone, but things are starting to look pretty bleak right now.

 

I have heard this from a few buddies there as well. We all know that people make mistakes but the failure rate has been very disproportionate lately and well higher than the norm.

Its terrible because now that there is a glimmer of hope of moving on to somewhere else they will all have recent 121 failures on their records where in the past 5+ years of 121 there were none.

 

I wonder if the high bust rate is their strategy for keeping pilots ?

Maybe if they bust a lot of them, they might think there's less chance pilots will escape from that toilet and find something better. Wouldn't surprise me, anyway.

 

A few of the Colgan guys especially have been busted going from a prop to a jet. It will not look good when they apply to a jet carrier and their only failure was them trying to transition to a jet for the first time.

We all know that a transition to a jet is a learning curve and has its differences but the folks I know personally who have failed are great folks and skilled aviators. Something has not added up when listening to the breakdown of their training. While different, the transition should not present much difficulty to the folks who put the effort in.

 

I could almost guess that if this is happening its mostly the guys who have never seen the plane before ie the guys going from saab to rj. I'm sure ground school doesn't prepare guys well enough for type rides especially in a school house where standardization is a joke. I doubt it has anytbing to do directly with retaining pilots. Not knocking colgan or mesaba guys but I bet they were ill prepared for their rides. We saw this same thing happen 5 years ago with the street captains. More than half were failing out. The past four years of upgrades have been with guys with a few thousand hours in the airplane.

 

Yea i agree, the Colgan guys 90% have failed that have gone to 9E side. I hope pinnacle guys arent doing this on purpose, but its looking that way.

Yup, one our guys failed because he was repositioned on a type ride because the pinnacle apd failed to set weather mins low. So the apd repo him on final and ca forgot to reset fms appraoch and the apd failed him. Well the ca got no assistance fro
9E union. And so far nothing come of it. But was reported to faa.

 

I wouldnt go so far as to directly accuse one group of any wrong doing. It is obvious though that something is missing from that training program.

We have had guys leaving for a while now and passing 737, A320, E190, 757, MD11 etc with no issues but it is the mighty CRJ 200 that is the silver bullet apparently.