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Originally Posted by DC8 Driver
We've been hearing allot of rumors out on the line that Southern Air has not been showing up to cover some of their regularly scheduled flying in the DHL system and are close to going bankrupt and getting ready to close their doors.
Any Southern guys that can chime in? purpose of this post isn't to gossip. If any of this is true, Atlas is desperate for pilots right now and would trip over themselves to get you on the property.
I doubt it. As said above, attrition is massive. One 737 was parked for a month due to lack of crews. They ramped up hiring to meet the demand, but training can't keep up. I finished the type ride in August and wasn't scheduled to start IOE until late October. My sim partner finished his IOE, but can't get a FAA ride to complete his training for another month or so.
Despite that, they did find crews for the parked 4th aircraft, and added a 5th 737 and a 5th 777.
One other thing to keep in mind is Southern has zero spare aircraft. Any MX snafu and they miss that day's flying. I've heard there is a clause in the SAI-DHL contract that basically absolves SAI from meeting performance goals for the 737 for the first
X years. So if they don't fly as scheduled, even if it happens a lot, its not a very big deal contract-wise.