Folks,

Does anyone know anything about this outfit down in MIA?

Any and all comments welcome.

RandyWaldron

umm yeah...if you got cash they will take it. All for you to fly in the right seat or be on the panel.

They are losing the Menlo contract at the end of the year so a good majority of their crews are gonna be on the street

Custom Air does not take anyone's cash. Where do you come with this crap?

Here's a quick education. Menlo is no longer... UPS logistics purchased Menlo last year. It is UPS's intention to cease operations at KDAY on June 30 of this year. Custom Air, Kiletta, Express Net.com, World Airways will be affected by the closure, not to mention the number of ground workers that will be displaced as well. The closure of KDAY does not mean that these airlines come to a screaching halt. There are othe contracts to be flown on behalf of other freight operators such as BAX, sub service for FED EX on their postal runs.

Hey captjns,

They do take people's money, if they are dumb enough to give it up. It's called www.jetuniversity.com and someone has done the dirty work of calling them. From another board:

I believe that this seems to be credible info. I'm sure there are some that can get hired w/o forking over the money, but they will try to get your $$ first, unless you stand up for yourself. So, before you jump all over Thedude, maybe you should look around first.

33,000 dollars to PFT on a old raggedy 727. Im sorry but I have a lot of trouble believing that there are people out there gullible enough to do that. That is absolutely outlandish to me.

Before you defend Thedude you need to get your facts straight too. Custom does not their pilots to pay them for training. Jet University has nothing to do with CAT.

Simcenter of Miami has an abinitio training program. True students pay Sim Center $33,000 for program starting with an F/E rating. After they obtain their F/E rating they fly as an F/E for about 6 months with full pay. So there is an immediate recovery of funds as they are treated as normal crewmembers with full pay as if they were employed directly by Custom Air Transport.

After 6 months on the panel, they return to the school house to upgrade to the F/O position. They then fly as F/Os for at least 200 hours with full pay at the normal F/O rate. Those who cut it continue to fly for CAT. Those who don't well that's the way it goes. You will find individuals who have trained with Sim Center over 2 years ago still flying with CAT. So do the math. These students have more than recovered their training expences. In fact some, while still flying for CAT, have moved on the regionals.

There are no suprises in the contract that the student enters into with Sim Center. All of the training expenses as well as hourly wages are contained within the document.

Do I endorse such a program? Its not for me to judge. But those are the facts.

OK, sounds like you may have me on semantics. MAYBE CAT themselves don't charge, but it sure sounds like they are profiting in some way. Their position in this deal is very murky, at best.

BUT, and this is a big but, this is still PFT. The previous poster was spot on when he said that these folks would happy to make you part with your money. I have my opinions as well, however, I will tell people how I feel about this. I feel that I have an obligation to show up and coming pilots that there are places out there that are unscrupulous(sp) and are not there for the benefit of the pilot. They are there to mitigate their training costs and actually make money off of pilots that may be in need of a job.

What ever happened to getting hired at a company and they train you, with pay?

Sorry, but it is true. I almost accepted an of the street Capt postion over there till i found out a good majority of the f/os and f/es are pay to play. I dont have right now time to go back and look for the ads I saw right now but hopefully i will soon. Now its back to drinking.

Emery was purchased by Menlo logistics in 2004 which was inturn puruchased by UPS logistics.

Emery pilots were replaced by Ryan International crews, not by CAT... not by Express Net, nor Kiletta, nor World Airways.

Your beef is with Ryan International... not the others.

The reason they are not scabs is because they were not part of any action against the Emery Pilots. Even ALPA thought the strike would have been unauthorized too.

By the way... when Challenge Air Cargo pilots lost their jobs... where were you? They were put out of a job with the purchase by UPS... and there was no strike or other issues. So what's the difference? Surely you don't believe in double standards?