"Right now, the Bus is going most senior, the right seat of the Boeing and Maddog most junior, besides second officer of course. Right now, Fedex is having seat bids around every 6 months or so, but that's not expected to continue."

Deuce,

Why does the -11 go junior to the Bus do you think? I would have thought the other way around.

And if seat bids aren't expected to happen every 6 months then does that mean that they will happen more or less often?

I too am an active duty guy trying to get smart. Thanks for the words.

Cheers,
Razor

A lot of guys like the type of flying on the Bus compared to the MD. A lot say it's 727 flying in a bigger plane. Shorter legs, less international unless you get SIBA. The pay is the same minus the international overide / perdiem.

I see. Thanks Koz. BTW, what is SIBA?

Special International Bid Award - - if I recall correctly.


A certain number of pilots bid to "hold" SIBA "status." For the roughly 90-day period that they bid SIBA, they are segregated, so to speak, from the rest of the pilots in their aircraft and seat, and they bid only lines that are constructed to cover that particular arena of flying.

For example, the Airbus has a considerable amount of European flying, and that is assigned to SIBA. If you bid and are awarded SIBA, you'll bid only on lines that are constructed with that European flying. A typical trip would begin with a commercial deadhead from Memphis to a city in Europe (say Paris or Frankfurt), flown first class due to the length of the legs, be followed by a rest period to acclimate to the time zone change, and then have several days of flying strictly within Europe. The trip would conclude with another commmercial deadhead, this time back to Memphis.

All the non-SIBA guys in the same seat would just fly the domestic trips in the Airbus system.




- The truth only hurts if it should -

just finished maddog training with a guy who has been at the company 6 months. he'll be ANC based of course. i thought it was a gutsy move for a new guy on probation, but he did great....as a side note, it seems all the paranoia about the md-11 training is either overblown or old news. the instructors were great, the materials very good(especially the laptop with the fms profiles), and the pacing not taxing at all. if anything the course was too long. 3 months!...

boxhauler,

regarding probation, just how serious is it. I mean would it actually affect someones decesion enough to not bid an a/craft type just because of probation. Is it serious enough to be canned over if you have a buy day in the box?

Look at it this way. Having jumped through (whatever) hoops were necessary to get the job, and you could lose it by failing (1, 2 ,??) prog rides, or type rides, why chance it? After 365 days, you get alot more protection if you have a problem in training. You can't help the first exposure, the second and subsequent are the result of seeking out the upgrade/lateral move.

dckozak,

I guess I was getting at how common is it? Do you know of or have heard of someone not making it (getting fired), not worried just curious how stressful training could be if you are taking your checkride with the thought of your career being on the line.

It's very unusual to have a total loss at any training level. Some people are chronic 200%ers. They require twice the level as what is normally allocated. Some will vapor lock occasionally but manage to stumble through. I would guess that the vast majority of pilots fall into that category. The company can be a pain but they do make an effort to get everyone through whatever training regimen they are involved in.

Q 1. Not very
Q 2. Yes
Q 3. Yes, some dumb a**'s some to training unprepared, happens every day. Maybe someone in training will write with a example. I only hear them word of mouth.