Mciflyboy

I second this . I’m not sure why everyone keeps going back to this point , saying their training program is tough.

If youve been through any other 121 training program, and got through without major issues, I don’t see why you cannot get through their training.

The manuals, training material etc isn’t perfect , but even they admit to it and are constantly making changes .

Now if your coming from a non 121 environment (cfi,135 etc) I can maybe see where you would have troubles .

PSFT

How much can one expect to fly on reserve? Obviously not many days off, but how many days do you get used?

Starlifter

I would say this varies greatly. I know some who are rarely used and others used often. Some of the variance is due to seasonal peaks and valleys and some of the variance is unexplainable. All of this may be OBE as the number of reserves on call have been reduced greatly.
I believe once the fleet has been fully refurbed ~mid Feb, we might get a better grasp of reserve usage That being said, March typically has lines between 80-90 blk hours so reserve usage then could peak.

YMMV

Noisy1

Sun Country is very dependent on seasonal flying, so winter is the busy season. March is all sorts of crazy with college basketball charter. Summer is pretty slow. How much you fly is very dependent on the month. Reserves do a lot of charter flying.

A typical military charter might be a 2.5 hour deadhead (100% pay) and a :40 minute taxi rice (unpaid) to get into position where you sit for 29 hours. Then, you fly a 3.0 hour leg that departs at 2 AM out of Charleston and arrives in Fort Collins at 3 AM. You then take a :40 minute (unpaid) cab to Denver and go into rest for 14 hours and then take a 1.75 hour deadhead (100% paid) back to MSP the evening of day three. I bring this up because it is hard to understand what this means from outside looking in and it highlights the difference between Sun Country and a typical regional flying life going hub to hub. You just did a three day reserve trip with 7.25 hours of pay, the rig will bump that up some closer to 11:00 hours. But, you only flew 3.0 over three days.

If you get saddled with this kind of flying - and you might well as a reserve - you might fly 18 hours and work 18 days for 66 hours credit. You can be sure you will never break guarantee, so 75 hours pay (at least year one).

PSFT

Thanks for the responses. Seems like an interesting gig that could mix up the routine.

Noisy1

The flying and the crews are great. I really love the mix of military charter, sports charter, casino flying and scheduled service. Not a lot of places you can fly that will rotate through all of that stuff so regularly. Never bored!

speedbird618

Do Sun Country conduct new hire training during the busy winter season, I thought I read somewhere that all the instructors fly when it is busy. If so when does the hiring start again. Thanks, happy holidays.

Noisy1

The latest all-pilot-call stated they were going to stop for a month. Can't remember, but likely March as it is our busiest month. Otherwise, the plan is to continue hiring to meet attrition. The company is not meeting hiring targets, so there is likely room in class.

Bwipilot

All good points. . . Except that some companies work to avoid failing anyone during training--while others have no problem busting pilots since that is a good retention tool in lieu competitive compensation.

Pull and Rotate

From what I understand they have been very generous with extra training and assistance to those who have struggled. It's not like they are trying to purposefully bust someone. In fact, they aren't "retaining" the ones who can't make it. So there goes your theory...