1dayA320

I was in a similar situation a while back and I could only shed some light to my experience at TSA while I was there. So maybe this is generalizing a bit too much but the guys who defend this place to the death I would guess have never worked and experienced what its like to work at reputable airline. And the guys who would, as some people label it on this forum...complain, have had some sort of experience elsewhere with a more professionally ran regional. But at the end it all comes down to perspective. You mentioned that you are currently at Republic and from what I've read things are not so great over there. And this may be causing you to look elsewhere.

I came from Eagle/ Envoy, spent a good while there and upgrade was at the very least 2 years away. Looking back I would say that I wish I would have stayed put. But the thought of flying the left seat was a desire too great for me to overcome because I though it was going to get me ahead. If TSA was your first regional at $44/hr I would say don't even think about it and get your ass over there. But to go there for $44/hr they are asking people who already have 121 time. And depending on how much time you've spent at your current regional, that could mean giving up much of your QOL. For me at Eagle, I was a senior line holder in base, weekends off with three weeks vacation crediting 100hrs every month already making 44/hr. Looking back I asked myself if it was worth giving up my quality of life for a handful of PIC time. Absolutely not!

They told me I would never see the right seat. But I'm pretty sure they meant to say left. Like some of the guys on this forum have already mentioned, if your going into the CQFO program at this point in the game, you can expect to do little to no left seat flying. They currently have all the CA's they'll need with the growth on property minus attrition. They want to grow to 1000 pilots and they currently have well over 500 guys. I think everyone there is counting on attrition being high so that's a positive but as of last month they were only doing 6 upgrades a month. At that rate its going to be a while to upgrade. Expect to work hard for your CA pay if you have the opportunity to fly the left seat. It took me three months, countless emails and multiple people involved to get my first CA pay (a whopping 7hrs). I was never accustomed to this, I felt like I was *****ing for something I shouldnt be *****ing about.

I went to my PC with 15hrs total time on the left seat. Recently spoke to someone who has his PC next week and only has 6hrs on the left seat. Although, the amount of left seat flying you do is a crap shoot. I came across CQ's who were getting their fair share of left seat stuff.

You will be on rsv for quite a while and their reserve rules are non-existent. 10 hrs of airport rsv. No proffering and there is no way of truly tracking what they are assigning to who while on rsv besides a rsv grid pdf that scheduling puts out every morning which most of the times is incorrect. So they assign you to trips or airport rsv as they see fit.

You will most likely never be able to pick up OT. On rsv you get a couple of three day stretches off at the most. But since they dont know when you'll finish and start your block of rsv days, that leaves only your middle day off to pick up OT. They assign trips up to seven days out so your best bet is to call on your day off and see if they need any help. That's how I got my CA time.

If all this is something you're accustomed to then I'm sure you'll be fine adjusting. But it wasn't the case for me. And to top it all off, when interviewing for my current position, the HR person shows me a copy of the resume they had in hand, it was back from October with zero TPIC. All this sh!t for nothing!!

DenverPilot8

I wouldn't come here if I were you even though it would be to my benefit in seniority. The fact is there is just going to be different perspectives about this place no matter how you see it. These company defenders are in my opinion very misguided in their expectations of how things should be. There is nothing wrong with enjoying the place you work. But there is also nothing wrong with comparing it to your previous experience with a different company. Almost all of the CQFOs in my class are un-happy precisely because their experience here thus far has been negative. But you have to manage your expectations no matter what you do. I came to TSA with an open mind and excitement at a new opportunity. That feeling has completely vanished at this point. It is my belief that we will not be able to staff this growth in the coming months. With over 400 pilots yet to be hired and class sizes under 10 people I don't think it's going to happen. Upgrades have slowed to barely anything even with a training backlog. We are tripling in size and we are upgrading 6 a month. I will say all the people here are great. Minus a very small few. But the reality is that NO ONE at this company is given the resources necessary to do their job effectively. From the D.O all the way down to the scheduler. They might be good people but they have no support from the company to do their jobs. I'll never forget how one of the C.Ps told our instructor not to make too many copies on the copy machine because "toner is expensive". TSA might have survived this long because they were scrappy but they are hugely inept and adapting to this much growth and the pains will continue with the lack of staffing not only in pilots but also in the main office. Everything is "doing their best" and for the most part i believe they are. But at this point everyone's "best" isn't good enough.

CBreezy

I disagree that their best isn't good enough. This is how this company makes money.

I've spoken to many CQFOs who are happy they made the switch. The ones who aren't happy are usually from XJT/ENY because they held awesome schedules and worked at an airline that had much more money. If you temper your expectations, this place is fine. It's not great, but I've been paid well and gotten 13-15 days off every month. I was able to upgrade at around 1000 SIC and haven't looked back. No, I would never want to spend my career here if I didn't have to, but in the current environment, this place is a good place to be.

I'm a little worried about staffing, but if places like Mesa and GoJet can continue to fill classes, I'm not too concerned about us.

Planedrive

How many classes were in August?

MavAv8r

You do realize the CQFO's aren't the only ones that came from other airlines right? Some of us did as well. For a lot of us it has worked out great. For others it didn't, welcome to the airlines.

The only way someone who is hired now doesn't upgrade in 12-15 months is A. We can't staff or B. They don't have the time. 6 upgrades a month is due to training backlog. You can't shove 30 upgrades through if you A. have no one to train them or B. nothing to train them in or C. no check airmen to get them on line. So in the meantime it's better for them to leave more FO's online and upgrade less for a few months to catch up.

Just a few months ago we did 20 - 30 total in two months. When you do the math that drops the upgrade time quite a bit. It's not rocket science. If they even want 800 pilots, we just hired our most junior captain. Many of those people won't even have the time by next spring, hence people like this guy will upgrade faster. DO THE MATH. 2 + 2 = 4

Instead lets doom and gloom it till the airline shuts down. Some of you guys would complain about a wet dream.

CBreezy

I have no problem complaining about the company. But the guy who had the long post that I fell asleep reading, said he came from crediting 200 hours with 20 days off at Envoy and was complaining he was on reserve? Yes. That's how seniority works. This is EXACTLY what was going to happen in a reserve based system. You leave your super senior FO position at Envoy and are now at the bottom of the seniority list. You get the scraps. I don't understand how you can expect anything else. So, the company told you that you'd get mostly left seat time and you didn't? You're trying to defeat the system and you got the "whoa there, get back to the end of the line where you belong." Is that different than any other recruiter? When I interviewed at Eagle back in the day, I was told that there is no way they'd ever give up airplanes and they'd never come looking for concessions because they just signed a BK contract. How'd that work out?

MavAv8r

Eagle told me they would come out of BK and be on there own and be bidding for their own flying with other carriers. Yet someone wants to come on here and ***** about coming here to be on friggin reserve, jesus.

I complain too. Our schedules blow this month, and the pay issue right now is ridiculous. I understand why we are having the pay issues, but it does not make it right. Outside of that IT'S NOT THAT BAD.

Do I think they should have upped first year pay in November last year for recruiting, yes. Do I think we should have some major contractual improvements, yes. Do I think our recruiting department has been extremely lazy on getting back to or getting ahold of people, yes. Do I think the schedulers are great, no.

I whine about certain things too, so I get real sick and tired of getting tagged for being management. Someone needs to actually paint a real picture.

Do I need to make a fukking pro's and con's list for some of these guys. OHHHH WAIIIIIT.... you can't have any pro's because then you are a management stooge... tools

BrewCity

Or D. Can't hire enough FOs to backfill upgrades.

TeamRamRod

There are at least 35 new hires sitting with their thumb in their ass waiting for IOE. That 6-7 airplanes worth of FOs. UAL growth is right at half done and AA is at 2/3 done. If we could take another 6 airplanes at the drop of a hat.. I think we'll be fine. We'll be short staffed, but it'll get done.

CBreezy

That's what staffing it means.