apex7

I'd like to know how others are able to live off new hire pay here at sun country? $48 an hour sounded good when I first signed on, but I quickly learnt there was no opportunity for earning over guarantee. I fly 25 hours a month if im lucky and most months get no per diem whatsoever. Brings me to clearing about $1200 a paycheck. Student loan monthly payments alone are just shy of $1000 so I get $1400 a month to pay for rent, food , bills , car etc.

I kid you not , I have friends who work at Walmart that earn more than me. I just took out a personal loan to help me get by for this month, but its unsustainable so I am looking for other ways to make money?

beech1980

When I started it was 30/hr. It was difficult but you have to manage it. It’s best to know the contract you fly under before taking the job. Flying a 737 is appealing but if it doesn’t pay your bills then it’s not worth it. I have a wife that makes good money and we new we could get by. Most of us started flying at regionals that paid 20/hr. It’s a long road. Good luck.

kingairfun

Get your student loan reduced.. I believe most loan companies will let you defer/reduce payments or pay interest only for a length of time..(may have been a year, it's been awhile since I had student loans)

I know it's crazy, but go to a flip phone to save $$ (it's actually liberating to be detached from a smart phone even for a short while), eliminate cable tv and use only internet.

As Beech1980 said, there is a large group of pilots who had to do the same thing with half of what your hourly rate is... (granted it was when flip phones were the rage) It can be done, and hopefully it's a short period of struggle for you, given the positive trends of the current industry.

Excargodog

Newbies get screwed because the pilot group already done with probation is unwilling to give up a damn thing to negotiate decent first year pay. And it’s always, “...well when I was a newbie we had to push back the jet by hand, all by ourselves, and we only made a buck twenty an hour.

The pilot group already aboard doesn’t treat the newbies a damn bit better than they complain that management treats them, and that’s the way the system works. I get it. What I don’t get is how a pilot group that lets this happen to their newbies considers them one tiny bit morally superior to the management people screwing over the pilot group as a whole.

tolipenalpria

take your type and run!! no new hires, no upgrades, no new bases, no new shiny jets, no pay raise, no descent schedules...you get the idea. Lots of regionals that pay more and offer upgrades and a chance at a real airline. sad to say.

BIGRIG

New hires got almost a 50% raise when the new contract got signed a few years back. We all thought that we were helping out the junior guys. Like Beech1980 said, it was $30/hr. It’s not some war story “I had it harder than you.” It’s the fact that New hire pay went up $18/hr and we thought that was a big gain for our new guys. And there is nothing in the contract saying that the company can’t raise first year pay unilaterally.

Excargodog

It’s always management’s fault because “...there is nothing in the contract saying that the company can’t raise first year pay unilaterally,”

GMAFB! I doubt seriously if there is anything in the contract that says that management can’t raise ANY of your payscales unilaterally. Do they do that real often? No, I didn’t think so. So cut the BS. You can’t blame this just on management.

Newbie payscales suck because THE REST OF THE PILOT GROUP isn’t willing to spend a nickel of THEIR negotiating capital on the quality of life of the newbies.

Bad enough your new hires have got to cover their own housing costs during training, which even the lowliest of the regionals are doing these days, but they are doing that at little more than first year regional payscales, less than that when you consider the better work rules and per diem at most regionals. Oh yeah, and new hire BONUSES.

Worse still that their fellow pilots don’t care enough about their future colleagues for them to fight for these things or them. Not the way to build solidarity in the pilot group.

I agree with the previous poster. The only reason to come here would be to get a type rating and run.

Onedayatatimee

Correct me if I’m wrong new hire 1st yr pay was raised from $30hr to $40hr by management just prior to the new contact. The new contract brought the pay up for 1st year from $40 to $48/hr.

BIGRIG

Hahahahaha. Sun Country Management did raise first year pay prior to the new contract. I’m gonna give you a golf clap for being a complete fool. And they are not allowed to raise the rest of the pay rates unilaterally. They can’t just pay second year FOs more. Or 12 year captains more. They can’t even raise years 1-8 on the captain and FO side unilaterally. They are however allowed to raise first year rates unilaterally. And when everybody last got a pay raise, first year was raised $18. More than 50%. How exactly should the pilot group raise first year pay outside of negotiations?

Excargodog

How much effort have they put in WITHIN negotiations? Obviously not much if you are well below regional airline payscales for new hires, AND YOU ARE.

Alternatively, if you really DID make the effort, and current rates and training quarters and pay actually WAS the best you could do, what self respecting newbie would WANT to join your group?