Competive Mins for CAL or Frontier

[great cornholio]

Was bored on airport reserve and noticed that I meet the mins for both places listed on their websites. The question I have is does anyone fly for either of these places and happen to know what the competitive minimums are right now. Of course I know the answer will always be no if I never send in my stuff, just want an idea of whos getting hired. The other thing I want to ask is the standard Pay, QOL, stuff about both places. I don't really want to leave a regional if I'm just going to go to a company that is basically a regional with big planes. And the last question is I have less than 1000 PIC 121 Turbine time. Do I wait for that or if I get lucky enough to get a job offer take it and not care about the PIC time. Well thanks for the help.

 

[Wesb737fo]

Hey Great Cornholio,

You will probably get alot of advice concerning your thread. If you are concerned that flying for CAL or Frontier would be like flying for a regional with bigger jets, I believe you would be mistaken. However, alot depends on your ultimate career goals and which regional you would be leaving.

My experience has been that quality of life has been 10X better (although my airline is downsizing) compared to the regional that I left. Also, PIC time is gold when it comes to becoming competitive for the better airline jobs.

If Continental or Frontier is the place you want to be ( and you meet the mins) go for it. Just keep in mind that there is a good chance you could be furloughed at least once (lol) before you retire, and having 1,000 pic turbine on your resume isn't a bad thing. Check out airlinepilotpay.com to compare the pay rates.

Good Luck


P.S. Also, it wouldn't be a bad thing to really dig into the financials of any potential airline employer. Try to find out as much as you can about any financial ice bergs that may be present.

 

[Patriot328]

Got hired at CAL recently. A tad less than 5000TT, 2700 jet PIC, another 1700 or so of turbine/121 SIC. No recs, walk in, or intern (white boy too, if anyone cares). Most of my class had recs. Quite a few guys from ATA. One pure military. Three Express Jet guys. Seems the average time is around 5000-6000 and up TT with the usual PIC/jet/121 stuff mixed in there.

Wish I could comment on QOL, but I'm still in training. Coming from my former company, this place is night and day. Much more organized, so far.

As things stand NOW (today, at this hour), CAL will bag more $$ than Frontier because of the larger equipment CAL flies. But how things are now will probably have no bearing on how things will be when you are 60. Things change.

As of now, RSV is short on the 737 in EWR. Getting to IAH is no problem as well. RSV on the 756 will be longer, but people can get to IAH relatively quickly as well if they so desire (and don't mind sitting RSV longer). If you are in EWR on the 756, you'll probably DH a lot on RSV and most of the flying is international, so hope you like Europe and some other international destinations.

 

[great cornholio]

Hey Great Cornholio,

You will probably get alot of advice concerning your thread. If you are concerned that flying for CAL or Frontier would be like flying for a regional with bigger jets, I believe you would be mistaken. However, alot depends on your ultimate career goals and which regional you would be leaving.

Not to worried about CAL being just like the regionals because they are a mainline and I know that their work rules would be better. Just kind of doing some feeling around so I can see what I might be getting myself into. I'm a born and raised East Coast kid so I don't really know much about Frontier at all. As far as where I want to be "when I grow up". I've always wanted to do the widebody international flying. So CAL offers that and Frontier doesn't. Like I said I barely meet the mins that they are looking for and I might have a connection at CAL. As far as being furloughed not too worried about that because I know its just the nature of the job. If I'm lukcy I'll only be able to count the number of furloughs on one hand. Oh yeah and the regional that I would be leaving isn't really that great. I would consider it on the bottom half of industry average. Thanks for the reply

 

[great cornholio]

Got hired at CAL recently. A tad less than 5000TT, 2700 jet PIC, another 1700 or so of turbine/121 SIC. No recs, walk in, or intern (white boy too, if anyone cares). Most of my class had recs. Quite a few guys from ATA. One pure military. Three Express Jet guys. Seems the average time is around 5000-6000 and up TT with the usual PIC/jet/121 stuff mixed in there.

Thanks, thats the kind of stuff I was looking for. That kind of time doesn't surprise me as thats what I figured the new hires would have. Like I said I just barely meet the mins, but I just found out that I probably have a connection there so I figure it might be worth a shot. So far out of the 2 jobs I have landed I have always been pretty much the low time guy so who knows maybe I can be the low time guy and a 3rd airline. Just looking for QOL stuff so I can kind of get an idea of what I might be getting myself into. Well thanks once again and have fun with training.

 

[PCL_128]

Got hired at CAL recently. A tad less than 5000TT, 2700 jet PIC, another 1700 or so of turbine/121 SIC. No recs, walk in, or intern (white boy too, if anyone cares).

Wow, that's enouraging. I didn't think CAL was hiring anyone without an internal rec. You didn't know anyone in management or anything? Congrats by the way.

 

[RJDC]

I heard they hired a 23 yr old recently at CAL.

 

[PCL_128]

.......

 

[kj6991]

I heard they hired a 23 yr old recently at CAL.

so. and your point is?

 

[K. Marx]

so. and your point is?

Perhaps that their mins must not be too high. Afterall, how old do you have to be to get an ATP? Do you maybe need that ATP to be Captain?