The academy was gonna happen no matter what. Nothing in our contract before or after you voted no stopped it from happening. I kind of like the idea of the academy. When the “ pilot shortage” happens turnovers going to be so high at all the regionals that the lift academy won’t be able to keep up.

Yep, that seems to be what the old scheduling keeps telling themselves. They did the best they could I’m sure, but they were simply outclassed.

Is there any updates up to what the compensation is for CFI's? Specifically those that are hired from the outside the academy?

Long time lurker first time poster, and current lift CFI. 30k/year salary and med., vision, dental, 401k available. Not sure how we can afford those benefits on that pay but it's there if you want it. Pay is same if hired within or outside of lift.

That’s not tooooo bad. I make 33k/yr at my school with pay raises at certain hour marks, but I also live in South Florida so housing is stupid expensive.

Thanks for the update. I suppose coming from the outside you are not subject to the cadet interview process? Is it fair to say you are guarantee an FO position once you get to 1500 even if you are hired from the outside?

CFIs go through a typical CFI type of interview and to my knowledge they are not guaranteed an FO position at RPA. They need to interview for it just like a normal street hire. However, many of them interviewed at RPA first, received a CJO and were then asked if they wanted to interview for a CFI position at LIFT.

Do the CFI's get flight benefits? I've read somewhere that they do as they are republic employees (?).

Also, I applied online last week (I have 0 hours) and haven't heard back yet. How long should I expect to wait? Thanks

No, CFIs do not receive flight benefits. We don’t get those until moving to Republic.

Not sure on your second question. Someone else will have to chime in on that one.

Really? I was really counting on having the benefits .. based on exchanging some messages with a current Lift student, my understanding was that the off-street CFIs don't get the flight benefits , but the ones that will eventually graduate from the cadet program will get the benefits.

Also, I was doing some math yesterday... Lift says that the students complete their program in 12 months and the CFIs in 18 months. This doesn't add up to me. Each student needs 300 hours (roughly) so that's 25 hours per month. The CFIs need 1200 hours in 18 months so that's 67 hours per month. Therefore there should be 67/25 = 2.7 students for each CFI in order to reach this advertised schedule... This ratio would make sense at a typical flight school, or at ATP, because there are many students that do not stay around and become CFIs. However, in the case of Lift, I imagine that most students will stay. So, what am I missing?