Colgan...cut out of IAH???

[beechcowboy]

Colgan is having trouble with half of the skywest routes, it wouldnt be better for them with more routes. lets see them right now if skywest pulled out. Hopefully, this will be a good lesson for CAL. Just to be clear i am not dogging the pilot group at colgan.

You are right. It's not the pilots, they are good guys. It's an infrastructure problem at Colgan and a culture problem. "Do as much as possible with as little as possible". I see it every day. Currently, there are not enough mechanics to handle the continuous maintenance issues, there are not enough schedulers to handle the normal schedule, much less contingencies, and there are not enough crews to handle the flying they have committed to. By mid June, they will lose atleast 6 Beech FO's... all of whom are qualified or nearly qualified for Captain. All those out there waiting for Colgan to call, keep your phones on, its coming. They have been so CAL Saab focussed recently, that they forgot to keep the training supply line open for the Beech. I predict a rush, very soon, to get Beech FO's in the cockpit. If they start to lose some Beech Captain's, they are going to be in between a rock and a hard place cuz they will have not have enough FO's to supply the upgrade needs. Street captain time! The nice thing is that they can fly the FO's they do have up to 15 hour duty days w/o having to reduce their rest. They can get creative and work the dog crap out of the crews they do have. I guess the bottom line is, does CAL want a carrier that is just scraping by? I am not in IAH, so I don't know the day to day issues. I'm not in the Saab either, but I can say that the Beech's are always being fixed and almost always are carrying MEL's. Very frustrating for the crews!

Top two reasons why crews leave Colgan: MX frustrations and scheduling issues. Just my opinion. That being said, I think Colgan will always be around scraping up the smaller outstation business. It seems to be their forte. Like I said, they want to do as much as possible with as little as possible. No bells and whistles here.

 

[NEDude]

For the record, I don't believe it.

My guess is someone heard about how Colgan had an engine failure (on the ground - not in flight). As it made its way through the various crack pipes, it has grown into Colgan is being cut.

Besides, as a CommutAir pilot, I can say with absolute assurity that we'd be the last to know, not the first. We even hear stuff about our own company from people at other companies.

 

[beechcowboy]

Well XJT employees just got "REAMED".....
the operation can handle it and now we have outstations closing and going to first Skywest and now colgan....
I have even heard managment is now worried Colgan will be taking more flying from XJT in the future....lovely!!!!

Not that this will really happen, but if it did, I believe CAL would be greatly disappointed with their decision. Express Jet is a very proud company in my view. They take pride in on-time performance, aircraft upkeep, and public perception. Business will always be business and I'm quite sure that routes will be subject to change from time to time, but honestly; I don't believe that Colgan can perform to Express Jet standards. It's like the JV team trying to compete with the varsity. It's usually not very fun to watch after the 1st quarter, it's over before half time, and you go away disappointed that you spent money on the ticket.

 

[beechcowboy]

For the record, I don't believe it.

My guess is someone heard about how Colgan had an engine failure (on the ground - not in flight). As it made its way through the various crack pipes, it has grown into Colgan is being cut.

Besides, as a CommutAir pilot, I can say with absolute assurity that we'd be the last to know, not the first. We even hear stuff about our own company from people at other companies.

You are probably right. That happened awhile ago though and the official company word was that a bird was ingested on t/o out of IAH. Kudos to the crew for bringing it back around safely.

 

[rumorhasit]

Not that this will really happen, but if it did, I believe CAL would be greatly disappointed with their decision. Express Jet is a very proud company in my view. They take pride in on-time performance, aircraft upkeep, and public perception. Business will always be business and I'm quite sure that routes will be subject to change from time to time, but honestly; I don't believe that Colgan can perform to Express Jet standards. It's like the JV team trying to compete with the varsity. It's usually not very fun to watch after the 1st quarter, it's over before half time, and you go away disappointed that you spent money on the ticket.

Exactly...someone said recently that CAL is unhappy with the performance of Colgan...I agree with you 100% no one can do it better than XJT but with the industry I just hope completion and performance remains more important to CAL than the bottom line...

With the mergers and competion from "other" regionals CPA is going to get interesting...say bye bye to profit sharing....

 

[Superpilot92]

When was Skywest originally supposed to be out of Houston? I thought they were already supposed to have been out but have been covering for Colgan. Does anyone know when that was supposed to have happened?

 

[CA1900]

I agree with you 100% no one can do it better than XJT...

You guys seriously need to get over yourselves.

 

[Superpilot92]

No one said anything bad about the pilot group at Colgan. Sorry i am sure he didnt mean to hurt your feelings.

 

[BluDevAv8r]

You guys seriously need to get over yourselves.

For starters, rumorhasit isn't a pilot for XJT. Secondly, yes, we do pride ourselves on the quality of our operation. Why? Because it is one of the best out there and is hopefully our ticket to continued business and prosperity with CAL.

-Neal

 

[Superpilot92]

For starters, rumorhasit isn't a pilot for XJT. Secondly, yes, we do pride ourselves on the quality of our operation. Why? Because it is one of the best out there and is hopefully our ticket to continued business and prosperity with CAL.

-Neal

AGREE!!

 

[BRA]

So i guess the 50 seat saabs are going to just do the routes the 34 seat saabs are doing? Strong rumor that colgan is going to follow in the footsteps of jetblue and airtran with the saab 2000. It will feature tv's in all seat backs that provide 10 different channels of porn. Ron Jeremy will be stickered on the sides of the airplane with a smile. They wanted elton john but they needed something original. Also, ron jeremy will be teaching future saab flight attendant classes.

 

[dh82dvr]

hmm that could be right. I think that my brothers ex girlfriends sisters friends cousin overheard some guy in an airport bar saying something like it.

 

[BirdCatcher]

When was Skywest originally supposed to be out of Houston? I thought they were already supposed to have been out but have been covering for Colgan. Does anyone know when that was supposed to have happened?

Skywest is supposed to be out July 1. Every month Colgan has been adding about two aircraft to gradually enter the system. So in theory July 1 is when Colgan we be completely flying those routes. It is Rumored though CAL wants Colgan to fly a few more routes and add a few more airplanes which will be fun to watch.

 

[HughBeamont]

It's an infrastructure problem at Colgan and a culture problem. "Do as much as possible with as little as possible". I see it every day.

Colgan Air: We do Less with Less.

 

[flatspin7]

For starters, rumorhasit isn't a pilot for XJT. Secondly, yes, we do pride ourselves on the quality of our operation. Why? Because it is one of the best out there and is hopefully our ticket to continued business and prosperity with CAL.

-Neal

Amen Neal.

I honestly feel that XJT is simply one of the best RJ flyers in the industry. This goes beyond the pilots. Our MX is incredible--- in my 6 months online I have seen a total of 4 MELs. And none of which were more than 2 days old. Just the other day I observed 2 mechanics ground an airplane when it was a marginal decision (windshield de-lamination-- apparently there is a certain amount permissable)

The pilot group really tends to work hard to get things done in a safe and professional manner. And our Work rules are better than a bunch of majors!

As a pilot who knows that 2007 can bring some degree of uncertainty-- We need to do everything in our power to make sure the product that our company provides is beyond compare to any one. Right now I feel pretty secure in saying that right now... Put XJet against Mesa, CHQ, Skywest I guarentee we provide a superior product. This is not meant as a dig towards pilots of those other airlines it is just that with a motivated pilot group ; soon to be 274 airplanes with 3000 pilots, and a system that we have been flying in for the past 20 years (in some cases), I think we have pretty much optimized our operations.