Are you serious? WTH...

I am one of the new hires and can confirm everything that has been said so far. The training department is excellent, I enjoy the single occupancy hotel rooms, and by the time I get out of IOE, I will have moved up at least 20% on the F/O side of the seniority list, hopefully getting a line pretty soon. Pay could be better, but like Brian said: "Always look at the bright side of life!"

Bright side of life doesn't pay the mortgage, unless of course you're living with mom and dad...

And now they are closing GO to help staff Mesa growth? If they were assured of continued hiring, they wouldn't be closing GO. There is more going on here than they're admitting. These guys can't take on more flying than they already have under CPA. They're pulling a RAH and canabalizing their less profitable flying to move it to the more profitable stuff.

Go! was a dying, money-losing project. I don't think its closure had much to do with staffing.

I'm all for being positive, but 20%? That's just unrealistic.

The go! Operation consisted of two airplanes. Don't kid yourself.

That's because it is. Let's say there are 800 pilots now, 20% would be another 160 which is another 6-8 classes. I think he just got carried away.

Okay a few questions for you Mesa guys:

1. When people say the schedules are "awful" there what are they referring to? The destinations, amount of legs in a day, what? Do they deadhead you all over the place? Do they give you long sits? Doesn't seem like that would play very well in the new 117 environment.

2. Where do you guys realistically see the 175 bases being in the future; I know you are starting with IAH.

3. From what I hear, expansion has both helped and hurt you in the past - do you feel the same thing will happen with the new expansion taking place?

Thanks.

1. Far117 made the scheduling less efficient. Basically, multi day trips that would juggle reduced/compensatory rest to fit more legs in to a duty rig would have to give up some flying to stay legal. 4-day trips used to be worth 18-20 hours. Now, we see 4-days worth 13-17 hours; so you're away from base/ home just as long but getting less for it.

2. I've only heard IAH then ORD

3. As long as we don't acquire 100 new airplanes that we can't staff (which hasn't been a problem so far) we should be fine. Expansion means less time on reserve, better schedules, and possibly new bases that could make commuting easier if you commute. The down side is that as long as we have full classes, management won't have much incentive to offer an acceptable contract.

Well, read my statement one more time ... 20% up on the FO side.

And just for clarifications: Sims are being pushed back due to Captain upgrades and 20+ new hire classes every 3 weeks. My sim will be in Canada, 4 weeks from now. So there you go, at least 80 souls added from my hire date.

I rather have a line within a couple of weeks/month out of IOE then sitting around while on reserve for a couple of month/years at most other regionals.