True. But at XJT and most every other airline you get paid your 75 hr guarantee after you pass your checkride. Here it isn't paid until you finish IOE, so the time spent on training pay here is significantly longer.

I'm not deterring anyone from coming here, so far it has been and will continue to be a great opportunity, but I'm just passing along my first hand experiences to others and that is what deterred them. One guy simply just couldn't afford to be paid that little for such a long period of time. It's too bad because they are great pilots and good guys.

 

While I still think I made a good decision to come over for the CQF program, it's becoming clear that this company has no clue the kind of pain they're in for if they keep treating people like crap.

Most classes have been moved from double occupancy to single halfway through ground. My class was not. We were told to pick Houston or St Louis for sim. The draw back with Houston was that it was a Sheraton with nothing really around for food, but everyone was getting single occupancy. Apparently that's changed and now we are doubling up in a hotel room for 2 weeks.

Also the guys that have started to go through the sim portion of training and have been sent to Houston are being taught solely by FSI instructors, and no longer have a Trans States instructor sitting in. This past class had a few people bust their ride who were sent to Houston and only had FSI instructors.

I guess the good news is that most of us who came for the CQF program will be gone fairly quick. A couple of our guys went to the women in aviation while in training and have had bites from new employers.

 

Kyle I don't know where you came from but big companies suffer from the same issues. Envoy is constantly mucking up the pay and they have 2,000+ pilots on payroll. Also (at ENY) you are on 64 hours of training pay until you finish IOE. Only upside is you also get 24/7 per diem.

At least Trans States is getting people thru the program and online (on average) in less than 90 days. I'm sure things are destined to change with the way the industry is headed, but seriously you talked your buddies out of coming here because of the training pay?!?!

If you budget appropriately it's not terrible. At least the hotel has a mini-kitchen so you can cook your meals. The training department has been a little lacking, that is really my only gripe.

 

Not true. I had a friend that just finished up down there and they had a TSA instructor. You can end up with a FSI instructor though - and it can happen at EITHER location.

 

Interesting. Everyone from my class that's going to Houston has an FSI instructor.

 

Some STL crews have gone through with FSI instructors also.

 

Well from what I've heard the STL FSI instructors are old TSA guys, so they know the SOPs fairly well.

I'm not too concerned, but the checklists here are pretty funky, and that's coming from the instructors who were training us.

 

This is mainly due to the use of crewtrac for payroll and it does not deal with cancellations and different pay rates well. Every place I have been that uses crewtrac for payroll has had these issues. Once the lufthansa system comes online these issues should go away this fall. Aso it doesn't help that one person deals with this for all of holdings. If this person was calling last week the payroll lady was on vacation but has been contacting people this week. I've gotten paid everything I was owed but sometimes it does take some effort.

 

How do you guys like that new NavTech bidding system? Have they ran mock bids the last few months using it?

 

It's alright if your super senior. I was able to get everything I want. I requested weekends off, max credit, and late shows.