Colgan Saab Upgrade

[Rip Vanwinkle]

I notice that on airlinepilotpay they quote the most junior captain on the 1900 as being hired in January of this year. Is Colgan hiring street captains or is there really a 2 month upgrade? If so, is the upgrade on the Saab similar? If not, what is the Saab upgrade time?

Also: What is the policy for aircraft assignment? Does the Saab tend to go to people with more/prior 135 or 121 time, or is it based purely on what they need at the time?

Finally, how difficult would Manassas be to hold as a base? What about the other Saab bases? What are their relative merits?

Thanks in advance,
Rip

 

[CoolSidePillow]

Colgan has hired street Captains for both aircraft in the past but it is something they try to avoid. 121 ops needs aircraft to have crews and it is easier to give a new hire indoc and a checkride than give a low total time low type pilot upgrade training. I dont know about the 1900 world over there. I know some street Captains and they are some good people that came over from Chicago Express. There is no expansion at this time so there would be no reason for them to scramble for street Captains. Saab upgrade is at a solid 12 - 18 months. There isnt much movement right now. A lot of the Captains are relatively new so they havent built up the good competitve 121 PIC hours to move on yet so things are slowing for upgrade. There has also been quite a few who have failed the upgrade so since there isnt a great need for Captains they may slow things a bit more to let people get more time and just work us line Captains harder.....
As far as getting into bases. That is a gamble. It is all about timing and luck. You have as good a chance to get to Mansass as any other base. If you dont get it right away. Patience. You will. How good or how bad a base is totally depends on the person looking at it.

 

[Kaman]

Hello,
The January hire date on airlinepilotpay.com may refer to the hiring of BE-1900 Captains from Commutair. At least three pilots were hired off the street that should be in I.O.E. And, I think that there are two more for March. This is good news for the senior 1900 Captains that have been waiting to transition.
Overall hiring, upgrade and transition is going to be slow this upcoming year for attrition only. There is one class of eight starting sometime this month that is all 1900 F/Os. Not sure when the next SAAB upgrade class is running, but I expect that it might be a few months down the road.
I'm not sure about Manassas as a base for new hires, but you have a much more varied choice of bases in the SAAB than the Beech.

Regards,

ex-Navy Rotorhead

 

[IslandDriver]

As said above the movement has slowed. I believe there is an upgrade class for the SAAB starting this week. I belive there are only 2 or 3 in it.

1900 street captains are a needed right now as I have been told that there are not enough qualified FO's ready to upgrade.

I know the argument that the FAA says you only need to have 1500 hours...but Colgan has found much more success with more like 2000 hrs in the upgrade. The enviornment that we all fly in is intense. More so in the 1900..most of the EAS airports they go into are "Special Airports" hard IFR in non radar enviornments. You have really got to be sharp!

Just my take on it.