Atlas interview - HELP!!!

[CF34-3B1]

I emailed my res to a friend of a friend, who then walked it in directly to Denie's desk. She called me the next day for an interview.

From what she told him, they are not calling ANYBODY without internal recs. Though times out there.

It may have changed since I interviewed a few months ago, but I had zero internal recs.

My interview class was pretty evenly split on internal rec vs no internals.

 

[Capt.LongThrust]

I had no internal recs as well. Emailed my resume to Denise and was called a week later. I think there were one other person in my interview class that had no rec.

 

[timetoquit]

Anyone know who the current Chief Pilot is at Polar and how to make contact (email addr. etc)?

 

[jwes]

Thanks longthrust

Clipper has some great questions above, anyone able to answer some of them?

 

[Wankel7]

Mar laid it out rather well in May....

First things first: I'm not interested in being the go-to man for Atlas Air recruiting and new hire transitions. I just want to offer a little advice to help make the transition a little smoother. I think I might have a couple good points having just experienced the same thing last summer.



Point One: (I was on line for about three months until someone mentioned this little gem to me) If your pattern begins with a British Airways (BA) or Alitalia (AZ) flight you may request a pass from the Atlas Air Crew Travel Dept to travel (non-rev) from North America to Europe. These passes must be requested from the Travel Dept and be approved by the respective airline. I usually use them to travel from SEA, ORD, JFK, or MIA to Heathrow (LHR) or Milan (MXP) as the case may be. Here's the catch: BA will deliver you to Europe to begin a BA flight (but you must have two local nights per British Flight and Duty Regs). Conversely, BA will return you to North America if your pattern finishes with a BA flight. AZ on the other hand will only deliver you to *begin* a pattern. They won't return you on a pass even if your pattern finishes with an AZ flight. But this point may be moot soon as the Alitalia contract is due to expire at the end of June (but is apparently going to be extended indefinitely--for whatever that's worth).



Point Two: Getting to Stansted (STN) from North America. You can travel on a BA pass to LHR or jumpseat on an American carrier (except American Airlines doesn't permit international jumpseat. I found out the hard way). You can also jumpseat (obviously) on Atlas or Polar. There are just a few precious flights from ORD and ATL direct to STN. There are a few more to Prestwick, Scotland (PIK) and several to Amsterdam (AMS). If you travel to LHR there's a bus service (National) that runs a schedule between LHR and STN just about every hour. It costs 20 Pounds (less than $40) for a one way ticket. It can take anywhere from 45 minutes to two hours depending on traffic and routing. If you travel from PIK RyanAir has several flights per day direct to STN. If you travel from AMS I recommend EasyJet. In fact I much prefer EasyJet as they're much more civilized and have no restriction on baggage weight (within reason). RyanAir will limit you to 15 kilos (x 2.2=33#). UPS and FedEx also serve STN but I have no personal experience riding either of them since the CASS approval. Whatever you do, have a backup and leave yourself plenty of time.



Point Three: Crashpads in STN. They exist. I have nothing to do with them. Nothing personal. I'm just sick of living like a college student.



Point Four: Hotels in STN. They exist. They're ridiculously expensive. The Hilton (with a discount) is 70 Pounds (less than $140) per night. The Radisson SAS is 80 Pounds. You can literally walk to the Radisson from the STN terminal. The Hilton has a bus service (every half hour on the quarter hour). Ostensibly, you ride for free *to* the hotel and then pay two Pounds for the return. They never check for a ticket and I never buy the ticket. No problem.



Point Five: Bed and Breakfasts in STN. They exist. I have nothing to do with them. They usually run you about 30 to 40 pounds per night. You get a bed. And breakfast. And you must pay for a taxi to drive 10 miles to the nearest one.



Point Six: Crew Travel and Crew Scheduling record your telephone conversations. Be nice.



Point Seven: STN reserve. Until this latest round of hiring I was second from the bottom of the company wide seniority list. I never had more than three days of STN reserve scheduled and when I did I called up Crew Sked and politely requested that if they had an ounce of compassion in their souls they'd find me a trip and not let me rot in the STN Hilton. And then I got a flight. If you're STN based that doesn't mean you have to live there. Don't freak out and start moving your stereo system and forwarding your mail, you know, unless you're really into fish and chips and warm beer. Whatever.



Point Eight: International cells phones. Nice to have. I don't know much about them. I bought a real basic GSM Nokia and then I bought a SIM card. Cheap. Easy. Piece of cake. Which brings me to my next point.



Point Nine: International calling cards: I use an MCI rechargeable card for a couple reasons. First, Atlas will issue you a company calling card and a list of access numbers that use MCI. It's real simple for me to just dial the access number for whatever country I'm in and then use the appropriate calling card (i.e. personal or company). The catch is that when I have to recharge my personal MCI card I have to do it from the States, they won't let you do it over seas (for "your protection").



Point Ten: The company (with two glaring exceptions) puts us up in either 4 or 5 star hotels. They will cover your internet access if you charge it to the room. This is a very nice perk and I would hate to see it go away since my entire pathetic little life depends on the WWW. I have all of my banking and bills set up on the internet and run everything by remote control. Not only that, but the catering on board is usually first class and I'd hate to see someone screw that up too.



Point Eleven: Short story. When I interviewed last year, a management pilot who no longer works here gave us some advice. He said: If you come to Atlas with absolutely no expectations you'll be happy. He said, This is just one big charter outfit with really big airplanes.



Point Twelve: Like I said, I don't want to be the go-to guy. I'm still learning the airplane and the company myself but if I think of anything else that I think would be pertinent I'll gladly post it. Hopefully some other Atlas pilots will chime in and offer some good advice as well.



Finally, let's talk about rumors. They're outta control. This place is full of them for a lot of different reasons. I have my own opinions about what's really happening and what I read on the internet or what I hear in the crew rooms or the from the company itself. I just try to look at the facts: ACMI is in demand. AMC charters are in demand. The economy is slowly recovering. But fuel is expensive and we operate 30 year old, four-engine jets. Labor contracts are coming due. And every day this company is paying for the mistakes of former management that are no longer here. You fill in the blanks. Good luck. Try to have fun.



I hope this makes someone's life a little easier.

 

[Capt.LongThrust]

I am by no means an expert but have asked a few of the same questions. Here are the responses by a buddy of mine.

All: This is very much appreciated. I can't thank everyone enough. As the interview nears, some questions remain. Atlas/Polar specific, if you have the time, at your leisure, if you wouldn't mind answering the following questions:

Stansted: I understand Stansted. However, let's say I'm in FRA (or anywhere else within central europe), would the company work with you and buy you a ticket from there to wherever your mission originates?As I understand it very few of the trips originate out of Standsted. Therefore the company will pay for a ticket from Stansted to Paris for example. If that amount is equal or less from FRA to Paris then they will buy that ticket for you.

Deployment: I believe I understand the 'norm' to be as 17 on, 13 off. So, jumpseating home each way, am I correct to understand 11 days off now? Or do they typically give you 14 days off? I have heard, however, that they will occasionally assign you 17 on at the end of the month, followed by 17 on at the beginning of the next month. 34 days - and my wife says - uh WHAT!?! So, would someone please give me a little more of an idea of what I can expect? And in addition, the more senior you get, how does your schedule become? Are there such things as 1 week on, 1 week off? I know they have a preferential bidding system. So as far as back to back 17 day stretches, I guess that would be possible.

Base: At present, (if Atlas) when would I be able to bid back to the US? <--Biggie for my wife...Again talking to a buddy of mine (a new hire) he said anywhere from 7 to 18 months. Depends on a lot of things continued hiring, airplane awarded. From what he said on the -400 there are approx. 40 F/O's with half wanting to be there. Figure around 5 a month in class do the math.

International phone calling: How on earth do you stay in touch with your family and remain financially thrifty? Also, a biggie...I have personally used AT&T rechargable cards from Sam's or Walmart. All you need are access numbers from the ATT website. Seems to be fairly cheap depending on which side of the world you are on.

Family travel benefits: Spouse and parents I suppose. Is DL ID 90, NW ID 75 correct?No idea.

Anyone have any idea of the planned hiring forecast?I think they are running a class July 11, one in Aug., and one in Sep. Then I think they will resume after the holidays in Jan.

Is there a training contract? No.

Jumpseating back and forth to europe. I assume you're part of the CASS system. How hard is jumpseating across the pond? Like any other commute except longer. Plan ahead and have some backups.

Any further interview advice/sim profile help is of course always welcome. Sim is very basic Departure, Hold, APPR. and Landing.

And if you have the time, a schedule example would be excellent! No idea. Again it is preferential bidding.

Thank you in advance to the ones who take the time to answer! If I end up with the Atlas/Polar team the beer to you is on me!

 

[jwes]

Great stuff guys please keep it coming... it really is giving us all a better understanding of whats been going on over there..

Here is a really dumb question, is Polar / Atlas a Part 135 or is it
FAR Part 121?

 

[KeroseneSnorter]

Great stuff guys please keep it coming... it really is giving us all a better understanding of whats been going on over there..

Here is a really dumb question, is Polar / Atlas a Part 135 or is it
FAR Part 121?

121..

 

[Arkady]

Regarding cheap intl' phone calls.... A lot of the folks are using Skype (skype.com) or similar services. You make calls through your laptop (which with this kind of job is nice to have anyway) & if you are making calls to another computer it is FREE (every pilots favorite word)...but you can also make them to any landline or cell phone as well and they are still at a pretty good rate compared to intl' calls using AT&T, etc... If you go to the Skype website they have a list of all their rates for all the various countries.

Of course if you are STN based it is still a good idea to get an intl' cell phone (for example I have a quad-band mobile AT&T/motorola phone...it works pretty much everywhere except for Japan & Korea) so you are free to travel around Europe and not be tied down to a motel room waiting for scheduling to call...or constantly calling them (only to be put on hold) just to check in to see if they have been trying to reach you (you can see how that would be a big headache in short order). Also, you can text message from just about everywhere these days too...great for cheap & quick messages.

Hope this helps & best regards.

 

[BDA by Clipper]

Interview dates slowing down?

Capt.LongThrust and Arkady, thanks a ton. I have heard of this skype sytem, but don't know very much about it. I'll need to check it out when I get back from my three day. Anyone else have any experience with this or have an even better deal?


I do know for a fact that August interview dates are tentative at this point. So, maybe they are indeed slowing down for the year. My interview date is supposed to be in the beginning of August. We shall see.

Does anyone know about the family travel benefits?

I as well did not have an internal recommendation as far as I know...

Clipper