Welcome to Flightinfo.com

  • Register now and join the discussion
  • Friendliest aviation Ccmmunity on the web
  • Modern site for PC's, Phones, Tablets - no 3rd party apps required
  • Ask questions, help others, promote aviation
  • Share the passion for aviation
  • Invite everyone to Flightinfo.com and let's have fun

QOL @ Pinnacle

Welcome to Flightinfo.com

  • Register now and join the discussion
  • Modern secure site, no 3rd party apps required
  • Invite your friends
  • Share the passion of aviation
  • Friendliest aviation community on the web
Register   Log in
K

k2774

Active member
Joined
Dec 27, 2001
Posts
25
Can someone provide info on QOL at Pinnacle? What I can expect at training...Upgrade times...Which base is best...etc.
 
Look up to the top of these boards. You'll see a search function. Give it a whirl.
 
Unless you live in MSP, MEM or DTW, I would not even think about it. There are much better places out there. It was going downhill when I left (2004) and from what my friends that are still there say, its not getting any better.
 
Longhorn said:
Unless you live in MSP, MEM or DTW, I would not even think about it. There are much better places out there. It was going downhill when I left (2004) and from what my friends that are still there say, its not getting any better.
Click to expand...


I live in MSP, and still left. It's doable if you live in base, but as everyone has said, don't walk away, RUN....
 
Pinnacle is in deep doo-doo if they don't continue to acquire more 900's or other airplanes more efficient than the 200. The 200 will be parked in the future and they must get a large order for planes to replace the large quanity of 200's they currentely operate. Stay away for now.
 
Quack said:
I live in MSP, and still left. It's doable if you live in base, but as everyone has said, don't walk away, RUN....
Click to expand...

+1, even if you live in base it still sucks. The place embodies everything that is wrong with the industry.
 
SEVEN said:
Pinnacle is in deep doo-doo if they don't continue to acquire more 900's or other airplanes more efficient than the 200. The 200 will be parked in the future and they must get a large order for planes to replace the large quanity of 200's they currentely operate. Stay away for now.
Click to expand...

This is not factually correct. Northwest owns the CRJ200's, and it's up to them to replace them with newer models. And we all know how NW loves to buy the latest and greatest equipment to be at the peak of modernity and fuel efficiency!

The DL and NW contract with Pinnacle includes a minimum service level agreement for a minimum number of planes (same as the current level of flying) until 2017.

The common theme that CRJ200's are completely unprofitable are also not true. Pinnacle flights touch over 40% of NW customers, and many of the flights to secondary markets are much higher ticket prices than say, DTW-MCO for $79 each way.
 
QOL is getting worse with every month.

April's lines just came out and people with 4 and 5 year seniority are getting only 10 days off. Many of the lines were constructed with back to back 3 day trips. Or a 2 day, one night in base then a 3 day.

Guys that were getting 15-17 days off a month are now gettin only 10 days off.
 
PCL QOL? Oxymoron.
 
finnjl said:
worst flying job I have ever had....crews and FAs were great but everything else is bad
Click to expand...

yup, morale sucks, pay sucks, schedules suck, training sucked...thats probably getting better, overnights suck, mx was ok but i heard that i sucks lately, Memphis sucks. Upgrades are fast but thats just because the place sucks.

And the contract sucks massively. Even if the company honored the current contract (which they don't), it would still be full of loopholes that will screw you hard when the weather gets bad, and 9E is running short on crews(which is always).

I would say "think walmart with airplanes" but even walmart treats the pilots in their corporate department somewhat ok.

If you've got the shiny jet bug that place is the vaccine. It will cure you of SJS for life.
 
Last edited:
STAY AWAY FROM PINNACLE

Training is mess. After your first 6 to 12 months chances are you'll get dequaled in the airplane because the post it note system they use for training records doesn't work. People have been failed on their requal. The hotels around corporate make crack houses look like the Four Season. Once every couple of weeks someones car is stolen out of the parking lot at corporate or Flight Safety.

Schedules are horrible and only getting worse. First Officers who have been here for 18 months only got 10 days off for the past two months. If you are on reserve you will be junior manned and extended down to 8 days off a month. Schedules are uncommutable. You have to show up in domicile the day before and depending on the city you live in don't have any flights home on your last day. Get ready to shell out a couple hundred bucks a month for a crash pad or hotel rooms. On 10 days off a month you often find you can go home for 24 hours before you have to come back for more punishment.

Upgrades can take months in DTW. It takes a couple of years in MEM and ATL. MSP is being slowly shrunk by attrition while Mesaba takes over that flying so you can count MSP upgrades in terms of decades.

The atmosphere is hostile. Get sick more than once or get a bad eval from some pissed off captain in your first year and you're fired in your 1 year meeting. We are about to go on strike so if you're in training when we walk then you're screwed if the strike lasts more than a couple of weeks.

If you're young and horny then our flight attendants can take care of that. The sight of 99% of them will kill any hard on. Even death row prisoners would shudder at the thought of a romantic encounter with this energetic, over 60 crowd.

STAY AWAY FROM PINNACLE
 
Don't come here. We will never get a new contract. This place sucks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
It is so bad that we have pilots from other regionals come here to stop commuting and then after being here a year wish they could go back to commuting.

9E is where hope goes to die.

Turbo
 
Windsor said:
QOL is getting worse with every month.

April's lines just came out and people with 4 and 5 year seniority are getting only 10 days off. Many of the lines were constructed with back to back 3 day trips. Or a 2 day, one night in base then a 3 day.

Guys that were getting 15-17 days off a month are now gettin only 10 days off.
Click to expand...

Sorry, but is that for a 4-5 year seniority captain or a 4-5 year seniority FO?? Just asking, because at ASA, as a 5 year employee I was an un-upgradable pilot with a highly enjoyable 18 day a month off schedule, but when the upgrade opportunity came around I went back to being "the beotch" with 11 days off a month.


Cry in your Cheerios? If you're honestly bitching about the schedule a 4-5 year Captain can hold, then you should be far more worried about people like me pissing in your cheerios than your concern about your left seat/right seat pissing match going on at your "subsidized" airline.

As always, just my opinion. However, in my career, I never had the opportunity/liability to put another pilot group in my crosshairs in search of a quick upgrade in a pseudo-mainline airframe.
 
You don't understand seniority at PCL. When I left about a year ago, 5 years of seniority put you at about 25% on the system seniority list, and at about 40% on the Captain bid list in DTW. When that kind of seniority doesn't get you more than 10 days off, QOL is nonexistent.
 
FmrFreightDog said:
Sorry, but is that for a 4-5 year seniority captain or a 4-5 year seniority FO?? Just asking, because at ASA, as a 5 year employee I was an un-upgradable pilot with a highly enjoyable 18 day a month off schedule, but when the upgrade opportunity came around I went back to being "the beotch" with 11 days off a month.


Cry in your Cheerios? If you're honestly bitching about the schedule a 4-5 year Captain can hold, then you should be far more worried about people like me pissing in your cheerios than your concern about your left seat/right seat pissing match going on at your "subsidized" airline.

As always, just my opinion. However, in my career, I never had the opportunity/liability to put another pilot group in my crosshairs in search of a quick upgrade in a pseudo-mainline airframe.
Click to expand...


ASA seniority list characteristics do not equal Pinnacle seniority list characteristics.
 
"You don't understand seniority at PCL. When I left about a year ago, 5 years of seniority put you at about 25% on the system seniority list, and at about 40% on the Captain bid list in DTW. When that kind of seniority doesn't get you more than 10 days off, QOL is nonexistent."


...And when QOL is non existant, then five years senority gets you 40% on the DTW Captain bid list.
 
Very true. Things used to be much better than now, though, even though it always sucked. I was getting about 14-15 days off at the 40% mark on the DTW list. Of course, that was before PBS came in and destroyed QOL at PCL.
 
Wow!!! people on here really love pinnacle! what bases are only giving 10 days off? Ive averaged consistantly 15-16 days off (except for march, 13 days), 45%ish msp captain, great trips, Never been extended or junior manned... Ya the whole contract thing and lack of respect sucks but I guess I just dont pay attention. Ive been here for 4 years and sat one month of reserve as an f/o and 1 month as a captain. Life has been pretty good. I guess I should quit taking drugs!
 
I have been at Pinnacle for about 8 years and have never seen such a generally hostile, po'd group. The longer the whole contract thing goes, the worse it gets. Performance has cratered and all mgmt can do is blame the union. Come here if this is your only option, otherwise, walk away.
 
cougarblue said:
Wow!!! people on here really love pinnacle! what bases are only giving 10 days off? Ive averaged consistantly 15-16 days off (except for march, 13 days), 45%ish msp captain, great trips, Never been extended or junior manned... Ya the whole contract thing and lack of respect sucks but I guess I just dont pay attention. Ive been here for 4 years and sat one month of reserve as an f/o and 1 month as a captain. Life has been pretty good. I guess I should quit taking drugs!
Click to expand...

two months of reserve , never junior manned or extended, life is good? You must have slipped through every crack in 9E.

I sat alot of reserve in both seats, was extended into 6 or 7 days off one month, and 8 or 9 days off almost every month that they could get me(no JM's those were just unavoidable extentions.)

I guess its not who you know, its who you bl*w.
 
Turtlesfly said:
Wow - you would actually admit this? My contract that defines my job isn't good but I have no idea what's going on. Great!
Click to expand...

tool. This place is a sinking ship. The Titanic is already rising out of the water, now just waiting for it to split in half.
 

Share this page

Latest posts

Latest resources

Latest media

SS at RC.PNG
Carbon Cub FX-3 Shenandoah Valley
Carbon Cub at Kittyhawk
FX-3 in the backcountry
IFR Panel in a Carbon Cub FX-3
Cub-Provo-UT-c.jpg
Back
Top Bottom