Contract Air Cargo (Trans Auto) at YIP - Questions

[cherry20's]

Take that back before I get corrected, two are flying right now. I guess they fixed the second one.

 

[Spoolingbyu]

Gulf and Caribbean Cargo (Trans-Auto) at PTK

I have a friend of the family who is moving back to the Detroit area and he is interested in flying freight.....

So, I am looking for some basic information: likely newhire FO salary on the Convair, QOL-schedule, domiciles, etc. Do 727 pilots start in the Convairs and move up? Also, I hear the Convairs are in pretty good shape and are fun to fly (if you have ear plugs).

Anyone care to comment on the pros and cons of Contract Air Cargo?

Thanks

You got some excellent factual information from Jessman, to which I am going to supplement and also add opinion since you seem to want some commentary.

newhire CV FO salary = $1k monthly paid during training. Monthly base guarantee pay is $1.5k first 6 months online, $2k thereafter. In addition, extra $$$ when flying over monthly guaranteed pay (based on sm flown, not hours), customs, wait time, and crew loads.

[It doesn't sound like the best, but IMHO, since we fly 300-400 hours a year, some nugget at a regional, oh let's just call him O'Connell Burnsides, has to get paid $48k a year minimum to be receiving equivalent pay, since they are working/flying twice as much, if not more.]

For more than 6 months out of the year I get paid to sit doing whatever I want as long as I can make the 20 minute callout and wheels up in 60.

QOL = depends what you make of it.

Yes, Convairs are in good shape. Yes, Convairs are fun to fly.

Mx is good, the 580s have varying equipment but generally good, and the 5800 is a sweet airplane.

You want the "pros & cons?" What is good for your friend depends on his goals.

Goals?

Fly Freight? IFL is good.
Build time quickly? IFL is fair. (What's the big rush?)
Good pilot group? IFL is great.
Build SIC turbine (and eventually PIC turbine?) IFL is good.
Super duper QOL/Pay/xmas party/company matched 401k/competitive health benefits/ = IFL not so good.

Job security is based on Automotive market health and not the airline passenger economy. Kinda a coin flip there.

One Falcon FO and one Convair FO recently left the company.
Some FO's are dual qualifed in both the CV580(0) and FA20.

The Boeing is a career killer at IFL unless you are already a CA in the darn thing. Looooooong time to upgrade there.

Bottom line? My advice would be to update your resume and get it in. Come see the D.O. in person. Be persistent.

I hope this helps, PM me if you have more questions from your friend.

As for the Falcon incident, I heard close to $2m to repair that "oopsie." News travels fast.

 

[NJA bound]

You will get a lot of good experience flying nonprecision approaches in the middle of the night into airports that you've never been to before, if you can stand the on demand lifestyle (pager going off at 100 am and you have to be at the plane in 20 minutes, gives you all of 3 minutes to shower and dressed in 2 minutes and out the door) work til 300 pm, rest til 100 am and than your next trip could be at that time but may not be until noon so work til 200 am than rest til noon and your next trip could ge right than but it's not, you're on call all day with a 20 minute call out, finally you get called for a trip at 100 am again so you'll work 14 hours after being up all day. It works out to having to be within 20 minutes of the airplane anytime after your 10 hours of rest our up.

Love the 91K rules at NetJets, never on call, before we shut down they must give us a report time that starts our 14 hours for the next day, beautiful. The pay is nice at NetJets also, made over 50K my 1st year as a copilot on a 7 on 7 off (15 days a month) schedule, and two 3 week vacations starting your first year, three 3 week vacations after 5 years and 4 after 10 years.

 

[RedGuy]

On call isn't too bad. Actually I prefer it when I can consistantly go out at the same time every day like you described in your post. But on an 8 hour flight day that almost never happens. What more often happens is that you may start out at 8-8am monday and end up on midnights by wednsday an back to days by friday. That can be rough. IFL is mostly 121 so I think they get 8 hour flight days and 16 hour duty days, they where just getting started with 121 when I was working there.