Comair Training

[RichO]

A few quick questions:

How long is the Comair training taking from class indoc to the end of the sims?
Are they still giving you some sort of income during training?
Any new updates on reserve time?

 

[miller22]

Its gonna take you approximately 3 months from Indoc to completing IOE. About 2 and a half months to get out of the sims to IOE.

Reserve time is a shot in the dark. Used to be about 6 months, but its been 6 months for me, and I was the junior guy until only a few weeks ago. Now of course I've been jr. manned to the 70 seater, so it could be another couple of years for me, unless I can figure out a way to get back to the 50 seater without that 3 year freeze.

With hiring on a rollercoaster, its tough to say how long on reserve, but I'd say 6 months to 2 years, depending on any number of possible situations.

 

[Gregory]

Hey Miller22,

4 Questions

1. I am in the 14 OCT class,,,,,,, wondering, what is the washout rate in the school.

2. What exactly is junior manning?

3. Are they Junior manning someone in each class

4. How did you get picked


Hey thank a ton ahead of time for the info.

G

 

[skiddriver]

I was in the 17 Jun class and just finished IOE a couple of weeks ago:

1) Near zero. Advertised pass rate is around 98%. Everyone in my class passed, and only two needed any extra sim time. This was out of 10 peeps - 8 new hires, 1 previous class roll back who had a personal problem which the company allowed him to work out, then come back to training, & 1 CRJ CA who had been out of the cockpit for several years working the contract negotiations and wanted to repeat initial. 4 previous airline folks (Eagle, CCAir & Mesa), 3 flight instructor (two academy, 1 not), 1 corporate Challenger guy, 1 military (me), and of course the previously qualified Comair CRJ CA. Just take notes and try not to ask too many detailed systems questions. They'll teach you what you need to know, indepth questions just slow down the class.

2) In this case, it's when you get force displaced into the 70 seat jet as a junior FO. Some folks are giving the plane a wide berth, as the schedules aren't fully fleshed out, and the chances of staying on reserve for a long time (years vice months in the 200)are really good. Establishment planning recommended against bidding for the 70 seat on the perm bid during basic indoc for new hires. If you get forced displaced, you can eventually bid back out of the seat to the 40/44/50 seater. If you bid for the seat (including putting the 70 seater above the smaller jet on your perm bid) you are seat locked. Ask establishment planning to explain the whole thing during indoc. It won't take them long. Your pay is the same the first year, the 70 seat is about 300$ more a month after that.

3) No new hires are being junior manned as of yet. They come up ineligible on the bid packs.

4) Miller22 will have to answer this one. Normally goes in reverse seniority among eligible FO's.

Good luck.

 

[miller22]

Thanx skid...

I think he answered 1, 2 and 3 pretty well. One thing on your first question, Comair wants you to finish training, and will go out of their way to help you meen the standards, which is indicitive of the rest of the company. However its ultimately up to you to meet the standards. Since you're concerned enough to ask the question, I don't forsee any problems for you. As for question 4, I was jr. manned. You'll usually find me at the bottom of a seniority list, and you will now on the 70 seat list.

How it happened? They opened a bid and all of the pilots who wanted to go to the 70 seater were allowed to bid for it. If they're looking for 20 pilots and 21 want it, the most jr. pilot in the 21 doesn't get it. If they're looking for 20 pilots and 19 want it, they'll open a secondary bid. If they don't get somebody to fill that 20th spot, they'll look to the most jr. man available (finished IOE and no freezes, etc.) and force him in, hence "jr. manning". Well that happened and there were about 6 or 7 spots open, which means they jr. manned 6 or 7 of us (can't remember off the top of my head). The real crapper is that if anyone with higher seniority (earlier hire date) wants to go to the 70 seater, they slip in above us, so movement is rather slow, if there's any at all for us.

So in a nutshell, thats jr. manning, and thats how it happened to me. Thats my story and I'm sticking to it.

 

[Gregory]

Thaks to both of you. Great explanations.
Do either of you live in the area? I am considering the move due to the reserve thing. How hard is it to find a decent crashpad?
G

 

[Anaconda]

miller...without me having to pull out my contract, can you tell me why you got tagged with a three-year freeze vice one year like it seems just about everybody else received???

 

[ShaftedbyJI]

Freezes

He is talking about if you bid back to the 50/44/40 after the one year freeze you take a 36 month freeze if you bid down in pay. Hope that clarifies...... shafted

 

[Anaconda]

thanks for the reply...

before i posted i checked out the list for the 70-seater. there is one person on there that has a three year freeze; everybody else has a one-year freeze.

so why did that one person get frozen for three years vice one is my question...

reference: seniority # 1390, freeze start date 8/30/02, freeze end date 8/30/05

all i can say is "ouch"...

 

[jetflyer]

Miller,

You must be ok. My bid packet says that everyone has a 1 year freeze even the number that Anaconda mentioned. Maybe there was just a typo at first?

Oh and I'll be getting hopefully only the 1 year freeze when I get junior manned really soon. I'm definitely going to the 70 as it looks right now. See ya soon miller

QUESTION for anyone that may know: Ok I get JMed into the 70.
Then I want to go back to the 50 which is bidding down in pay, am I then stuck in the 50 in a 3 year freeze as an FO like Shafted mentioned???

Jet