When you get your books, memorize the limitations, EPC memory items. Start on the first night. After the first week, once those are committed to memory, work on profiles. Put the poster on the wall. Get it down flat. Following thoses three things will have you well prepared for the Oral and Sim. The ground school will teach you the systems you will need to know for the other half of the oral.
You will get put in CASS in the first day or two. I would go home on the weekends. I did, and I come from BOS. You finish up ground school at around 3-4pm on fri. I hopped a flight home. Enjoy Sat at home, take the G.F./wife to dinner. I took the 6am out of BOS back to DFW on sun. Had all day Sun. Spent the pm relaxing and studying. You need a solid day off out of TX. Maybe i'm just a dammm Yankee but, I needed a break from dallas.
Pay wise, I was a MA resident at the time which means I got boned on taxes. Learned my lesson, i live in NH now.. No state income or sales tax.. So i'm not sure what the tax structure of Jersey is, if its like NH or MA. My pay check was a 64 hr guarantee and per diem. So it came to 970 bucks every two weeks. So bascially 2k a month take home. Now, I know through IAI, first year pay is around 25/hr. It was 23.43 an hour when I was hired. I also dealt with 6 percent state income tax. If jersey doesn't have income tax you could perhaps be at 1050 or maybe 1100 month take home. Just speculating. Its true you will find while it seems like a lot, its not. I'm about as fiscally conservative (cheap) as they come. For what we do and put up with its not nearly enough. I remember thinking it would be great at 35 bucks an hours, yet it was still not enough. I am getting ready to go on 40 bucks an hours and its enough but, really not enough. I made 46k last year, I definitly should end up somewhere in the neighborhood of 50k or better this year. Certainly enough to start building my house in month or so. In fact I can more than afford the mortgage I will have, I could live a lot easier too but, I pour everything extra into getting the mortgage paid off. Thats the number one most important thing to me. However, I could never afford to live in MA, or NY. No way. I live 2 1/2 hrs north of Boston in north central NH, near the white mountains, in the woods. Its about where I can afford to live and its a good thing I like it up here. Bottom line pay particulary FO pay needs to be more in line with our mainline partners.
So to conclude my piece of useless advice.
Yes, it will be a pay raise for you. All regionals suck, some more some less. Eagle is mid pack. Our reserve system is not that great. You are a slave to crew sked. You can work the system to make more money, we had an FO make 80k a year. I do think we will get divested. It will be annouced in March. Not sure if it will be good or bad but, we better get a big carrot for it, in terms of AA numbers for everyone at Eagle. The union seems to be negoiating with APA. Also, trip and duty rigs. Don't let it distract you in training though, let chips fall where they may and good luck.
05-28-2024
