A Review of Avantair

[ozpilot]

Also the Company is considering an FO pay raise due to the upgrades taking a year longer.

Source?

 

[RollandPull]

Source?

Sources are credible and internal. The Pilot Advisory Committee working in conjunction with Ops, HR, Finance, and the CEO.

And for the record, the discussions began months ago. Since there are no daddy deep pockets to go to increases have to be budgetted to make the change. Just as if you wanted to spend more money on something at home on a fixed income.

 

[gunfyter]

Little weak on the NJA union history....
Out first union contract was decades ago. 2005 was NOT our first contract ... nowhere near so.

The 1998 contract is likely what you are referring to ... was due to amend in 2001 but did not get settled until 2005.

7 years of inflation caused the pay rates to seem low. Also NOBODY was on FO pay ... everyone was on PIC pay.


But if you apply inflation rates to the 1998 NJA payscale to what Frac pilots earn now in 2009 ...

You will find that frac pilots earn about the same in 2009 as they did in 1998 in constant 1998 dollars.

 

[Geronimo4497]

Part 1

Several Avantair pilots have either quit or have been “released” in the past several months. I chose to quit. As these public forums are designed to do, I can only give my overall personal perspective and experience at Avantair. Avantair’s management reads these public forums all the time, so don’t expect current employees to chime in unless they have only good things to say.

I find it suspect that you would suggest that current employees would post a response if they “have only good things to say”. Besides being an obviously disgruntled former pilot, are you challenging current pilots to air their dirty laundry on a public message board? What good would come of that? There is a reason that we have an internal company board where everybody knows who everybody else is. I imagine that you did not bring up any of your issues with Avantair during the exit process with management? It sure would have helped the rest of us if everything you have written is true.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly​

The Planes/Pilots: The schedule is 7-on, 7-off (for now). The East Coast based pilots seem to have earlier starts and later finishes in comparison to the West Coast flyers. You start with 1 week paid vacation. You get 7 sick days, but it is a nightmare to use, as I discuss below. They have a marginal medical insurance plan. I suppose it is better than nothing if you really need one. I chose to decline the medical insurance. The retirement plan isn’t worth mentioning. The company is based at PIE in Clearwater, Florida. Domiciles are scattered across the country, but are only about 1/3 of what NetJets offers.

7 and 7 for now? The only thing I can of was late last year when the idea of a voluntary 8 and 6 along with a corresponding pay increase was floated. It died a quick death amongst the pilots. Personally, I enjoy the current arrangement and the occasional extra cash that comes along with OT. It sounds to me like you took all the rumors out there hook, line and sinker.

The Avanti’s are nice planes to fly, very quite, and roomy in the back. But, they handle very poorly on the ground due to an oversensitive hydraulic nose-wheel steering system and the lack of anti-skid brakes. Avantair has had several off-runway incidents and many, many blown tires. There have been aborted take-off’s because of steering systems that have a mind of their own.

The steering system has a mind of its own? Nice, apparently Avantair has the only airplane out there with Artificial Intelligence. Can I put that on my resume? Is it touchy, yes. Is it impossible to control? Far from it. It is an Italian hand built airplane; treat it as such. Overall, the airplane has very fine qualities and there really are no gotchas. If you slam on the brakes at touchdown, you certainly have a great possibility of blowing tires due to the lack of anti skid. Personally, I ignore the brakes above 80-90 kts and have never had an issue.

The F.O.’s cannot fly with passengers on board until the F.O. gets 225 hours in the Avanti. Approximately 2/3 of the leg-times are live legs and about 1/3 are repo’s. As a result, it takes several months before the F.O. will gain enough flying time to actually get to fly the plane with a passenger on board. The F.O.’s aren’t allowed to do any night take-offs or landings either. The F.O.s don’t get Blackberry’s. FO’s must use their own cell phone and will get a small stipend from the company to help cover a portion of the cost for national calling.

See above, we are not flying a Cessna 182. This airplane takes some time to get used to and the 225 hour limitation is something that the company set up with waivers available, as Mainiac noted. The night take off and landing limitation is to save on unnecessary expenses where possible. Sorry you don’t get to be night current, I would have given you the first 2 legs of the next day to make up for it. It is a requirement of the FAA (and a stupid one at that, IMO) but until we can get a waiver, it is what it is.

Avantair has a PAC Board that tries it’s best to represent the pilots. As with any company, the PAC can only suggest and ask for things. Only a union contract will pull the pilots into the 21st century with pay and work rules. Some of the pilots are considering talks with one of the unions to see about representation. They need it.

You are right, the PAC does what they can. They listen to the pilots and pass it on to management. It is acted upon if not totally unreasonable. When/If an FO pay raise happens, you can thank the PAC. I seriously doubt a union will ever be on property here for that very reason. Your opinion is that a union is needed. The VAST majority feel otherwise for a variety of reasons.

The Good: Avantair seems like a solvent company. They have a unique niche in the market that appeals to a certain class of economic flyer. They are still growing, although aircraft orders have slowed down quite a bit. The vast majority of the pilots are professionals who take safety and their job seriously, but as with any company there are always a few who don’t use a checklist, or consistently have incidents/accidents, etc. Nearly every pilot likes the Chief Pilot. He is very personable and easy to talk to. The only problem is that at times, upper management tries to do his job for him. A lot of micro-management goes on.

For a second, this sounded like a genuine part of the “Good” section. It totally fell apart at the end, sadly.

Their stock value peaked around $5 per share in early 2008 and in December 08 fell to less than 50 cents per share. It is now trading around $1.75 per share. The pilots who bought in at the beginning lost their a@@es, but the prices are slowing climbing up. Let’s hope it stays that way.

Let’s hope! I am looking forward to the next public financial conference call which should be coming very soon.

The folks in Pilot Services do a pretty good job helping the pilots. The same number of personnel are now handling twice the number of pilots and aircraft as they did in the past, so we were starting to see some problems as a result.

I can’t disagree with you that PS seems to be understaffed. During peak times it is hard to get a hold of them for more than a minute or 2. Email works wonders, however. This obviously gets back the the Blackberry issue.

The Bad: Avantair isn’t very pilot friendly. Right off the bat, they make you sign a contract that forbids you from flying another Avanti for 1 year after you leave Avantair. That doesn’t make sense to pilots who make their living flying planes. The D.O. has said that 90% of the pilots are happy with their job and 10% are not. He doesn’t speak with the same people I flew with. I saw about a 50/50 split at best, and most of them don’t care for the D.O. Standardization is still a problem. It was very hard to find 2 guys who did things the same way. Perhaps the new Procedures Manual will help address that ongoing problem.

The agreement is to not fly another Piaggio for 12 months after leaving the Company. Funny, I know of a few folks that have left for a full time, single owner/plane Piaggio job with Avantiar’s blessing. 50/50? That, again, is your opinion (biased, naturally as you have quit). My perception is quite different and that is my biased opinion as I enjoy my work here. The new procedures manual is helping, a lot.

It is “expected” that you will carry maintenance problems with you. We had one day where 17 planes (1/3 of the fleet) were in maintenance at the same time for repair/inspection. I was personally on 2 flights that really concerned me. On one flight we were asked if we were OK with continuing a flight at night with scattered IMC conditions at our destination……with an inoperative #1 gyro. The company knew that gyro couldn’t be MEL’ed. We refused, of course. On another flight we were told to keep flying a plane with low oil pressure in flight. I think some captains are intimidated into not grounding a plane when it needs to be.

I have no idea who you were flying with, but did you bring up your discomfort with the low oil pressure? The most conservative opinion in the cockpit makes the decision. If that did not happen, did you bring the issue up with the ACPs or CP? I have never been pressured to fly a broken airplane and never will. I have never been called to task over it either. As the training department says over and over, we are the mechanism to slow things down and do the job safely. Period. End of story.

 

[Geronimo4497]

Part 2

More than one crew was “convinced by management” to fly out of Hamilton, Montana in the summer even though they didn’t meet the minimum take-off requirements as required by our OP Specs. The company doesn’t want to tell the owner’s “no” and the pilots were expected to put their careers at risk by violating the GOM.

I have never been to Hamilton myself, but Gaithersburg plenty of times. If we are going any significant distance that will put us above 11,550 we are gong to have to make a fuel stop. I’ve done that on several occasions and never heard a word about it. I find that if you explain it to the owners, they appreciate being in the loop and recognize that safety is our priority. This is my experience and I would not be working here if it was anything else.

Avantair policy manuals where changed to start charging its pilots $10 for crew meals. If you are given a 29 minute turn-around in the middle of the day and can’t grab any lunch, get ready to grab your wallet if you want a crew meal.

I have never been charged for a crew meal. Granted, I only order them when all other options have been exhausted. I have probably ordered a dozen or so since that policy has been implemented and never once had to “grab my wallet”. The policy was implemented to reduce the flagrant abuse that was coming form a few select pilots. I keep forgetting to thank them for that.

The sick-day policy sucked. You get 7 days per year. If you are sick more than 2 days they expect you to pay for a doctor’s visit and get a note. After three sick days they won’t send you out on your tour at all because they don’t think it is cost effective to airline you out at that point. If you are sick more than three days, be prepared to either lose some pay or burn all 7 sick days.

I was out for 3 days with stomach problems. Jihad on the colon you might say. No questions asked, no doctor’s note, no problems. I did volunteer to make up the days at the end of the tour, but it was not needed and I was docked for the sick days. As a general note, if you are sick, use the days, please, because I don’t want what you have.

In December, 08 the company tried floating the idea of going from a 7-7 schedule to an 8-6 schedule of some sort. <snip>

I think this was discussed already. See above.

Avantair is in the process of dropping its crew-to-plane ratio from 4.2 down to 3.8. This will put a huge squeeze on the pilots. As more of us quit and more planes are bought, that ratio will be reached and then hiring should have to start again. That might be good news for some of you that are looking for “anything.”

Yeah, some good news! More OT and hiring. (I think you should have put this in the “Good” section.)

 

[Geronimo4497]

Part 3

The Ugly: Pay! When I hired in I was told that upgrades to captain were running 9-12 months. I accepted the sub-standard F.O. pay on the premise that I would pay my dues the first year and get upgraded. That didn’t happen. Upgrades at Avantair were completely stopped in December 08. The training department is now telling FO’s to expect a second full year as an FO. Avantair thinks it’s second-year F.O.s are worth a whopping $37,000 per year. Due to the upgrade stoppage and insulting pay….I turned in my notice at my 1-year mark with the company. I can bartend 2 night per week and make more money than Avantair pays it’s FO’s, never being away from home, never missing a holiday or a kid’s birthday. It didn’t make financial sense for me personally to stay at Avantair.

I’m sorry that the world economy almost collapsing interrupted your upgrade expectations. Didn’t Grandpa ever tell you to not go to an airline based on upgrade time? It really does stink because I have many friends here that have not made it to the left seat yet and they have really earned it. It’s too bad you didn’t wait for it, as you were only about 20 numbers from it on the seniority list. Well, maybe it is a good thing for the rest of us. Yes, jab intended.

As of today, F.O’s are expected to take the captain check-ride at their 12th month of employment (instead of an FO re-currency check), but not expect the actual upgrade or get the captain pay raise. The F.O.s are also required to do the captain “6-month checks” as a captain would, but not get captain pay. That puts the F.O. at risk for busting a check-ride, of which no compensation even exists.

Stinks, yes. It is a much better use of the training departments rescources, however. I’ll be more than happy to let the ‘non-upgrade upgrades’ fly the left seat on repo legs to make sure that are current and comfortable from both sides. I believe there are plenty of other Captains that would do the same.

There has been a recent rash of failures during upgrade/re-currency checks. I’m not sure if a lot of pilots suddenly became bad pilots, or if the company is tightening up things because of the number of resumes on their desks. The consensus seems to be the latter of the two.

So, fire people so we have to spend double the money to hire someone new and then spend over a year bringing them up to speed so they can upgrade? That is quite the consensus you have going. Where were we in the hiring cycle 12-18 months ago? It was still going gangbusters and most large operators were hiring almost anybody that applied and qualified. “Quantity over Quality” is rearing its ugly head in my opinion.

I quit working overtime for them when most of my overtime pay wouldn’t show up on my paychecks. I shouldn’t have to keep calling them to get my pay straightened out. They did eventually give me all of my overtime pay, but it took several weeks and many, many calls and e-mails.

It happened to me twice during my early time here. It has not happened since. You may recall there have been many back office changes since that time. It’s a shame you didn’t work more as we may have had the chance to fly together. I’m sure that would have been an interesting experience.

Synopsis: One guy who posts here says it is the best job he has ever had. It probably is. For me, it was the second worst job I’ve ever had. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Good luck.

Indeed. Good luck to you also.


Overall my experience at Avantair thus far has been good. Things are not perfect, but I do see a trend of things getting better every 6 months or so. I fly the line and get to do my job safely without any undue interference from HQ. That is all I expect. I think this company has a long future ahead of it and I plan to be here to watch it grow. The schedule gives me the opportunity to pursue all of the things I was unable to do at my last place of employment and I am paid a fair wage so I can afford to do all of those things. Sure I would like to make more eventually, but I also want it to be sustainable long term. I don’t think this company can afford what the competition pays, but that is not a surprise as we fly an airplane that costs half, or less, of what the competition is operating. As a result, management fees don’t generate the same revenue. Seniority and longevity is the key here, as it is with most good jobs. Peace out, my hands hurts from typing too much. I think I’ll have a beer with lunch. I love my week off. :beer:

 

[BoeingBaller]

Hey baller, put some in that gapping wound on your face and STFU.

NJA pilots weren't always paid what they deserve. Here's to bringing Avanti up to a level where they can enjoy a better quality of life supported by their product.

Again, great job on the "Pitchmen" show!!

AMF

Harsh realities are sometimes hard to deal with, but as long as your happy there that's all that matters. Do you still get your whopping one week of vacation for your first two years of employment.

 

[Helmsalee]

If they are on 7/7 sched, 7 days vacation gets you 21 days off. Most folks would need 3 weeks of vacation to do that.

 

[HazMat]

It just boggles my mind that a NetJet guy right now would be critical of anything about Avantair. The number of resumes and resume postings to our employee website from NetJet pilots is unreal. Yet we have people like baller talking smack.

 

[G-force]

Re: Pilot Haters- MGMT!!!!

This place sounds like the "bottom of the food chain" fractional,in other words,a BOTTOMFEEDER!!!
I am glad I passed on this place,after reading the first post in this thread,it seems like mgmt. hates the pilots!!!
Not a good place to work!!!