Colgan

[TheBigH]

Nobody likes street captains, anywhere ... On the positive side, Colgan is upgrading Saab FOs and transitioning Beech captains to the Saab at a good pace so I guess it will be understood that the company has to hire street captains, if they weren't doing the transitions and upgrades it would be a different tune ...


Yes they put you up during training at one of the nearby hotels and pay $50/day during training ...

 

[TheBigH]

As an addition to the street captain question, I just gotta say that the coolest captain I've ever flown with was a street captain and everyone liked him. So I guess if you're cool and come in with a good attitude you shouldn't have too many problems, your biggest problem will be that every other Saab captain for about the next 2-3 years will be senior to you.

 

[halfmoon]

QOL is unique to each person. They do out and backs, so you'll be home every night if you live at your base which they have a lot of (25-30 bases). On the other hand if you have family and commute it will be like any other airline except you'll be going to the crashpad rather then hotel.

You need at least 2500tt to upgrade in the saab, 2000 in the beech, they let you slide if you have a lot of turbine time.
They will probably hire off the street captains, mostly from chicago express soon since the pool of qualified fo's at colgan is only a handful.
You should be able to make any base you want within 3-6 months.
There's no reserve.
No, it's not PFT. That lasted between summer 03-summer04. Most of the pfters left and went to chautaqua or other rj operators since they were low time or too young to upgrade.
I think you get $50 a day in training and hotel paid.
If you want a jet, don't go to colgan.

 

[Jetlag]

does anyone know how junior ALB is and surrounding bases (SYR, LGA, ITH, etc.)?

 

[BRA]

With the changes this company is gonna have in the next year i don't think anyone can tell you right now which base you may get. The pilots on the list now really have little idea which base they can get on a month to month basis. Infact....a lot of the prior history here no longer makes it easy to judge the future based on the latest events. I think few thought the company would be expanding into houston. Many have quit in recent months that would have been captain at this point. People left for air wisconsin, asa, and american eagle for example that were only months away from upgrade. At the time they seemed like the right move. Right now those choices look bad, but wait 5 minutes...they may look like the right moves once again. Street captains on the property does look realistic. People upgrading in less then a year with around 500 in type looks realistic too. Bases are hard to predict. I do think LGA may no longer be a base soon. Reserve would probably be very short, sometimes non existant. Depends on how many want to go to texas...but i would guess you could get albany within your first 6 months here?

 

[msk2468]

no LGA base you say, and I heard PDT/Allegheny are shrinking their LGA base. Is anyone going to pick up the flying there?

 

[BRA]

Well i really don't know for sure. Last i heard that base was temporary. LGA is just a little too cool of a base to be in our system. Look for increased lines out of Lebanon, NH , syracuse, or something like that. Or may be it saves money not to park the planes there, i am not sure.

 

[SEFlyer]

Did you PFT there?

Yes he did.

 

[SEFlyer]

COLGAN IS NOT PFT !!!

They stopped that last spring/summer from what I hear. But despite what anyone tells you, Colgan is most definetly not a PFT place. What they are still doing for sure is the sim evaluations in the Beech sim at LGA for new hires.

My understanding that the new hires have to pay for their sim evaluation... Colgan did stop PFT about 6 months ago, but most of the people who are there in the right seat did in fact, PFT.

 

[Flying_Corporal]

My understanding that the new hires have to pay for their sim evaluation... Colgan did stop PFT about 6 months ago, but most of the people who are there in the right seat did in fact, PFT.

I work for Colgan and what you're saying is wrong. Sim eval is free and all captains I know are former Colgan FOs.