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COMAIR Training contract???

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Phrog-guy

Member
Joined
Apr 4, 2002
Posts
14
A couple Comair questions???

1) Does Comair have a training contract, if so how long?

2) About how long do you fly reserve before picking up a line at Comair?

Thanks
 
How long is upgrade running at Comair? I'm just curious. That would suck to have to spend approx 1yr on FO rsv. At my co, ACA, which is rapidly becoming another Comair, FOs don't spend much time on reserve, save for the handful of ppl who got hired in Sept/Oct 2001. Upgrade is approx 2yrs for all a/c - CRJ, FRJ, and J41, though there is no more upgrades in J41.
 
The upgrade time is quite skewed depending on your flight time. Pre 9-11, so many were being hired with fairly low time, you would be able to bypass a lot of people because of the 3000 hrs. required to be a captain there. Was about a year, seems to be longer now. Of note, training/hiring is on hold, reason given is bombardier can't get crj's to comair fast enough. This came from a line pilot who spoke to management 2 days ago. Your gonna get a lot of answers to this question, and probably all will be educated guesses, but just that, a guess.
 
skydiverdriver said:
1, no

2, Depends on several factors, but right now it's running just over a year for new FO's.

It wasn't long ago that "ComyAir" was known as the "pay to play airline"...I would assume all of there Captains had to pay the 10k in training fees...isn't aviation wonderful...we used to make fun of the guys who used to pay for Continental Express and Comair jobs...jmo
 
I wasn't necessarily 'making fun' of those ppl who had to do PFT.

It was a different economy, different scenario. Today's job market is almost sizzling compared to the way it was in the early 90s.
Lets recap - early 90s. Pan Am, Eastern, Midway + several other smaller affiliates - bankrupt. Thousands of multi-thousand hour PIC FAR pt. 121 pilots couldn't even find a job to BUY, let alone find a job, period. If you were a brand new CFI, it would takes years just to get a 135 freight job. What other choices did you really have. Yes, PFT sucked, but you did what you could to advance your career.

Today several majors have furloughed and a handful (e.g Midway, Canada 3000) are in the history books. Despite that, there is hiring at the regional levels. Several companies that you can make a career out of, including Comair, ASA, ACA, Allegheny, Piedmont, Skywest, are interviewing or sucking people out of their pre 9-11 hiring pool. I would gladly change places with any major airline pilot who is on furlough, except a USAirways guy...I have confidence this industry is going to bounce back. From various friends I have still at the CFI level, it sucks for them, yes, but there are still other options for them, e.g. 135 outfits, charter flying, etc....

Bottom lines: I am not a proponent of PFT and having to buy a job, I am just expressing the fact that the situation just 4-5 years ago was completely different. Those ERAU or FSI 500hr RJ wonders just didn't exist, and if you were hoping for an airline career, you did what you had to do. One more thing - look at how well a couple PFT evolved into a choice employer: Exec Jet and Continental Express. EJA is a place where everybody is gunning to be, while I know of countless people who went to COEX under the PFT regime, benefitted from the flow through, and are now sitting comfortable with a couple years seniority at CAL. I think they'd call that $10K the best $ they ever spent on themselves...

JT
 
It's running about 2.5 years to make captain at Comair. Thanks AA for reminding us, again, that we used to have pft. I'm sure we all really need to keep hearing that, over and over and over. I will never get tired of hearing it, and I thank you so much for mentioning it.

BTW, I did not pft..thanks.
 
skydiverdriver said:
It's running about 2.5 years to make captain at Comair. Thanks AA for reminding us, again, that we used to have pft. I'm sure we all really need to keep hearing that, over and over and over. I will never get tired of hearing it, and I thank you so much for mentioning it.

BTW, I did not pft..thanks.

No Problem! ha ha...Hey about five years ago I had a friend that I got hired at the commuter I was flying at, instead a week before his class he decided to interview and accept employement with ComyAir. Yes ComyAir is a much better place if you plan on staying at the Regional level, but lets face it we all just need the time and experience and were off to a major. In his case he is a RJ captain at ComyAir, but I am a S80 driver at AA.

JTrain: Taking a guess on your experience level you were probably hired at the Commuter around 1999? If so, most companies had gotten rid of the pay to play crap and the minimum hours to get hired were greatly decreased, and trust me so increased the failures and bust out rates. It was difficult to get hired in the mis 90's at the Regionals, but it just took patience(most pilots don't have) and aggresiveness. Guys paid and it made them look bad, and made the industry look even worse. Your biggest concern right now would be: first hoping the majors recall all there furloughed pilots, second mainline flying stops going to the regionals RJs at the rate it is, and third hope you build alot of time and types because the competition is going to be fierce once AA and the others start to hire...better yet you could be like all the other chumps and go pay 8 grand for a 737 type and fly a herb turd...Take care
 
EMB Guy

For the record, I was hired by ACA in summer of 2000. I did not PFT, nor di I have ever intention of ever doing PFT.

Now, a question for you, EMB Guy:

How did you get your Private? Who paid for your Instrument rating? How about your commercial ticket- did you get a scholarship for that? Well, if you're like 99.99% of the rest of us, you PAID for your own ratings. How about your college degree - did you pay for that? Or here's another question for you - if you were accepted into Harvard MBA - and the 6 figure salary you get upon graduation - would you spent $$$ for that? Of course you would - its an investment in yourself!

According to your definitions, the only people who truly 'earned' their jobs are the cadets that European and Asian airlines train from 'scratch' as ab-initios - these people earned their jobs through a gruelling interview, testing and aptitude examination process.

As for Mr. S80 - I'm glad things worked out for you and you're at AA. I presume the regional you were at was TSA (since you didn't do PFT and they're the only other one who flew J41s and J32s), because there was a time everybody wanted to go there because they were one of the few non PFT outfits around. Now lets assume you hadn't lived such a charmed life and hadn't been hired by AA. You would be at TSA, which by many accounts is a %$#@! place to be. Your friend hedged his bets by picking Comair, likely since he was impressed on the surface by people trying to turn it into a place you could spend your career. AA wasn't always the goldmine for pilots it has been - it took a lot of hard work by a lot of people for a long time to create AA, circa2002. With people like your friend, Comair may one day become a place like AA. Then again - it may not. There are no certainties in this professions.

JT
 
integrity

Thank God we have so many able and willing aviatiors who are not sacrificing their integrity for the noble cause of???? and just what is that nobel cause that we have not fed the children over.

Well so we can tell our children how we had it rough waiting on tables and not compromising our souls by ---- well by something.

These judgemental pontifications reflect ----- well they just reflect on the character of those making judgement, certainly not on those who make judgements on their own careers faced with the decisions that that they had to make for their and their families good.

Waiting tables is a profession more suited to those that chose to do it when they had other options, or, or, did they?
 
back to the issue at hand...

the may bid results have the most junior lineholder as a guy i was in school. he finished ioe in nov so he has only been out on line six months. lots of guys junior to him are holding continuous duty lines, which pay pretty well and actually give you a lot of time off in cvg. this particuar guy is getting 15 days off in may, pretty good.
 
"You'll make a fine scab if your fellow pilots ever go on strike. No doubt you'll be one of the first to cross the line."

I seem to notice a lot of statements like this one regarding pilots that PFT'd. However, just last year a bunch of pilots that work for a former PFT company went on strike for 89 days and not one pilot crossed the line. This same pilot group was also heralded throughout the industry for it's incredible unity.

I'm against PFTing, but I fly with pilots everyday that made that choice. To a man they are professional, extremely competent, and all in all a great bunch of guys. I've never met anyone here at Comair that holds it against anyone else.
 
If I remember correctly, 2 pilots crossed the line at Comair and joined the SCAB list. Comair pilots (and more informed ALPA pilots) can correct me if I am wrong but I believe they were 2 retired Comair pilots that assisted in ferrying stranded aircraft. I guess the money was pretty good......:confused:
 
AWACOff,

You are correct in that two pilots did ferry airplanes for Comair during the strike. Neither was on the active pilot seniority list then or now. I believe they were both former Comair pilots that were past age 60. Neither PFT'd.
 
This is great, a goof like AA , gets a job and slams the rest of us. nice going.
No one really plans on staying at a regional, what is a regional anyway...
Airtran is as much as a regional as any.
No offense to Airtran by the way.
What is ´Comyair´anyway, you sound like a child.

I didn´t pay for training either, I have as much experience as you, but that is not the point, I can hold CRJ Capt, but I am frozen in the EMB'120 for now.

Upgrade has only been less than a year on the Brasilia, before the strike.

Take it easy, we are trying to keep our jobs and make a bettter place to work and consider those that have lost theirs.
 
Guam360 said:
This is great, a goof like AA , gets a job and slams the rest of us. nice going.
No one really plans on staying at a regional, what is a regional anyway...
Airtran is as much as a regional as any.
No offense to Airtran by the way.
What is ´Comyair´anyway, you sound like a child.

I didn´t pay for training either, I have as much experience as you, but that is not the point, I can hold CRJ Capt, but I am frozen in the EMB'120 for now.

Upgrade has only been less than a year on the Brasilia, before the strike.

Take it easy, we are trying to keep our jobs and make a bettter place to work and consider those that have lost theirs.

Ummm, Where to start? "Goof" uhh, I would say this makes you sound like a child and not me. "As much as experience as me", I doubt that a EMB 120 can compare to a previous I.O.E. 2 typed check airman at a commuter and a MD-80 f/o, but enough with the comparisons as we all know time doesn't matter, experience does and I think I have you beat there. As far as ComyAir, pay to play is concerned, take it easy Pal I didn't make it up, although I find it a funny line. I have friends at essentially all the Majors, UAL, CAL, LUV, etc. and when I needed help they had no problem is assisting me to attain my goals, being they were friends. Seeing how the economy is today I think it would be in your best interest to make friends on these web-sites, rather then find offense in the opinions one posts here. P.S. what is the GTW weight of the EMB 120? Take care
 
Model EMB-120 RT MGTOW- 25,353
Model EMB-120 ER MGTOW- 26,433

Of course this is assuming no weight restrictions. From what I have heard from captains that have moved on from Great Lakes, the Brasilia was the hardest type rating of the bunch. I'd say somebody who can safely manage a Brakillya must have most of the screws up top finger snug at a minimum. Anybody for "6 pack and a pound"?
 
"AirTran a regional . . . "??

Hey, whatever, pal. I guess it depends on your idea of what a regional is, but our 64 aircraft all weigh in well over 100,000 MTOW and all have well over 100 seats, in a two-class configuration. Name me one regional that has either one of those two?

Our pay for F/O's is about the same as Comair or ASA CAPT. pay, and I'll make over $100./hr by my third year. Good work rules, and a company-funded retirement that beats the hell out of any 401K.

If that meets your definition of a regional, hey, knock yourself out. I believe the correct definition is a National, and when we pass $1 Bil. we'll be a major.

No criticism to our hard-working regional brothers, we hire a lot of 'em!
 
Ok, beat me up...

AA, I have many friends at all the majors also, I made the comment to you from your opinion, that's all, I have alot of flight time but that is not the point, a EMB 120 weighs 25, 529 and a Shorts 3-60 -200 weighs 26, 553.

No big deal.

I have friends at AirTran, I tried to give an example of a region of flying, It just so happens that Airtran and Comair fly mostly east of the Mississippi, so in comparison it is similar flying, multiple legs days and many nights away from domicile. That's all, no offense intended, or degrading disrespect.

I know the pay is higher and the plane weighs more, but the flying is similar, that's all. Sorry.

For AA to jump and try to prove his worth, is another thing, then again, internet communication is hard to know exactly the writers demeaner.

I have friends at big places trying and willing to help me, I have and always will help a beginner or someone down on their luck, ie. furlough.
Take it easy, this thing is just for rumor and simple dialogue between brothers and sisters.

Comair does have a company funded retirement plan comparable to SWA thanks to our strike.

The concept of regional comes from pre- 1978, weight of aircraft wasn't part of the regulation.

fly safe!

No offense to anyone!
 
Hey AA do not get your panties in a pinch. I flew the J41 the DC9 and the S80. The S80 is by far the easiest plane to fly. I do not know about you but I can not tell if I weigh 150K at take-off or 24K. I do not agree with the people who paid for training either. I will never put them down though. Who knows if I had 10k sitting around while I was flying charter maybe I would have done it. Go to your nearest bar and tell everyone how cool you are. A pilot is just a pilot. Some just think they are better. By the way if you must compare pilots the DC9 is the only plane that will make you a real man.:p
 

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