The biggest hurdle for the new hire is letting go of their past training experience. The Omni training format is in parallel with how Boeing teaches. The aircraft manuals are set up the same way. You have to look for things in several different manuals and it doesn't make sense. There are many company manuals because of the environment the airline operates that also need to added into the mix. Those that study and learn their way around the manuals find that all the questions and confusion get sorted out in the FDT portion of training. Those that have poor study habits or need to be spoon feed everything will have a hard time with the training. It's not a regional airline. It's a widebody, on demand, international operation. Low experience or lazy will probably not get through the training program.

I had an interview scheduled this week but had to cancel it due to being on a contract trip and it got extended. I originally told the HR person at Omni, that would probably happen with this group I was flying. Anyway, they said they didn't have any future interview dates available right now and would get back to me.

I'm curious what I may have lost out on here. Is the pay scale shown on this site, accurate? First few years in the 50k range? Upgrade over 6 years or so? Thanks for any imput you can provide, just wanting to see if this was a job I would have stayed at or okay to pass by.

For the past 10 years I've been making over a 100k and was ready to take a cut to go somewhere long term, but I wouldn't be able to take a huge cut for more than 2 years unless it was someplace where I could keep contracting to make up the difference for those years. Just contracting, I'm in the 150's now, luckily.

Thoughts from some of the Omni people for someone like me?

Packrat,

You are correct in there is a fixed based simulator before the full-motion. And I would agree you should know your stuff before you get to the full-motion. However, what I was referring to, and obviously didn't communicate very well, was day one of the fixed sim you're expected to know everything; there is no real training, just evaluations. During ground when asked about CDU training the company response " don't worry, the instructors will teach you everything you need to know". That simply isn't true.

If the training is so good and the instructors are so willing to help, then how is it that majority of a recent class quit?

FL450 - You're the type, Hillary type, who attacks anyone who doesn't agree with you. Good Luck with that. And to reply to your future response - blah, blah, blah, blah.

Well said, Sir. The word "professionalism" comes immediately to mind. International wide body and major airline flying are the big leagues and you'd better be ready to perform.

I am no fan of Omni or FL450 but what he is saying is 100% right. 99.99% of the guys in Omni ground school have at least one type rating and have been in a ground school before. All FMC/CDU work about the same, you should have a general understanding day one of FTD. Also you have a month to a month and half form the start of ground school to the first FTD, you should be 90% on flows and 100% on imitations. It isn't that hard, sorry maybe this career isn't for everyone.

To tell you the truth my ATR ground school was 1000x harder than Omni ground school. It was one of the easiest ground schools I have ever been in out of the 7 long terms. They tell you on day one what they expect from you and give you the tools to get it done.

Not many are fans on FL450 but at the end of the day I just show up and do my job, depending on who you talk to. I do appreciate be76flyer's honesty and when I see him in person will still shake his hand. As mentioned above the ATR ground and sim was 1000 times harder than anything I've seen at Omni.

Happy Landings

FL450

Not factual at all. I just went through a few months ago and none of our class had that experience. It is true that you are expected to have a good working knowledge of flows and procedures/profiles. But that is just chair flying in front of the paper trainer. My sim partner and I spent 2 weeks prior to FTDs going through that stuff. And while it all didn't click while we were doing it in practice beforehand, it all came together in the FTDs and Sims. That's a normal way of training. No airline wants to spend $$$ for valuable sim time walking you through a flow step by step. Have a rough knowledge, polish in the sim. It's pretty standard training practice.

I will say though that the people without any FMC experience did have a more challenging time. So previous FMC experience helps significantly.

Omni is not a career airline and treats you that way. I came to Omni when they only had 2 B757s (I was given the choice of either platform; chose B757 best decision I ever made). There was a lot of tension between the DC-10 crowd and the B757 crowd. And there still is between the B767 and B777 fleets! Omni was a DC-10 airline and always will be. A lot of senior pilots did not want the union there because it stopped their back door deals with scheduling and now they had to follow the contract.

The FO/ initial type training I went thru was really good, awesome ground and sim instructors! But it was pre-contract. Later when I went thru B767 Captain upgrade the ground school was a toss up on who you got. The ground school suffered when it was taught by the two individuals that did not have any experience on the plane. Nothing against these guys (they are great guys), they did the best they could with the tools Omni had given them. They just didn't know how Omni operated the plane on the road. Several questions had to be sent to the Flt Mngr TK to get answered.

I never sat thru the B777 ground school. But I can tell you that when we parked the DC-10 and all those pilots transitioned the wash out rate was 48% and several pilots that had passed Boeing 777 training did not pass PC/PT when Omni started their own B777 training. The B767 program is lucky because Omni was able to hire several ATA B757 check airman and instructors. The B777 program not so much. There are so good guys over there but the are some real losers there too. Some drank so much Kool-Aid that they have turned in their fellow pilots to management instead of using pro-standards trying to get them fired. Even though there are pilots that I look up to on the B777 I would avoid that plane like it has the plague!

When I was the chairman of the Training Review Board the biggest reason pilots did make it thru was the FMS and the automation. The training is tuff and a lot is put on you! You need to put the time in chair flying in front of a paper panel. I was told recently (with in the last month) that about 25% on the new hires are not making it thru. This came from both instructors and Tulsa folks I have talked to. I think the Director of Training is good guy as well as the new Fleet Manager.

The reason the FEDs don't get involved is because these pilots never make it to the check ride so there is no an official busted check ride. PRIA is the only place it will be noted.

Omni is a good place to get wide body international experience but expect to be treated as a second class citizen there with crappy pay and benefits!

The Standards Captain is the laughing stock of the training department and is a real tool. The dude likes to try and fart on you when you are in the sim or cockpit. He has no business being the Standards Captain. The Chief Pilot is also a tool and will step on any pilot he can! THANK GOD THE FLEET MANAGERS ARE COMPETENT!