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current upgrade times in the industry

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deceptibum

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 12, 2002
Posts
80
I was wondering if everyone could post the lowest upgrade times at your respective airline from your last bid vacancies. Just to get an idea of whats going on at the other airlines. BTW Eagle stands at about 8 years right now for the RJ upgrade.
 
At NWA, we are still doing downgrades. Have no idea when upgrades will start again.
 
Spirit has run a couple of upgrade classes since we brought back all of the furloughees. Most of those upgrades were about three year employees, but some were at about the 24 to 27 month range. We plan a couple of more newhire classes this year, so I espect at least one more upgrade class, and those upgrades will most likely be from the spring of 2000 newhire classes.
regards
 
Upgrade times

At NetJets, pretty much anyone can have Captain in indoc or shortly thereafter. I started in Feb and have passed up countless upgrade bids on my airplane (Hawker 1000) as well as others. There was one guy with previous fractional experience in my indoc class and he bid and got awarded Cap in indoc. The individual aircraft Program Managers and their Check Airmen do discourage probationary pilots from bidding the left seat until completing your first year...all for the common sense reasons. It always happens that someone junior to you will bid and pass upgrade training within your first 6 months and you'll get bumped up to Cap pay anyway....which leaves the question.....why do it??

Hope this helps.
 
.....

The last brasilia upgrade class at skywest was almost a year ago. The most junior pilot in that class was probably 2 years. I know someone pretty junior who just went to the jet as CP with about 3 years.

Scott
 
Re: Upgrade times

JBL said:
At NetJets, pretty much anyone can have Captain in indoc or shortly thereafter. I started in Feb and have passed up countless upgrade bids on my airplane (Hawker 1000) as well as others. There was one guy with previous fractional experience in my indoc class and he bid and got awarded Cap in indoc. The individual aircraft Program Managers and their Check Airmen do discourage probationary pilots from bidding the left seat until completing your first year...all for the common sense reasons. It always happens that someone junior to you will bid and pass upgrade training within your first 6 months and you'll get bumped up to Cap pay anyway....which leaves the question.....why do it??

Hope this helps.

Is the Payscale at NetJets comparable to a major airline? Do you enjoy working for NetJets?

Thanks.
- Unchilled
 
Past performance is no guarantee of future results! However, it appears to me that the bottom pilot awarded B-727 captain on the last bid was hired about 5 yrs ago. I don't know for certain, but it's about that, perhaps someone here with better info can pin it down a bit closer.
 
Been at Mesaba for two years now.....looks like it's going to be at least another 2-3 more years before I touch the most jr reserve saab captain seat....this isn't taking into account that our saabs start leaving in the fall or whether big daddy blesses us with RJ's, or whether we strike because of the current pace of our contract nego. My bet is it's going to be more towards the the 3 more year mark making it 4-5 years to upgrade at mesaba. Yea!
 
It's about two and a half years at Comair. Of course, only a few airlines are hiring right now, so that should make the choice easier! Good luck.
 
Re: Re: Upgrade times

Unchilled said:


Is the Payscale at NetJets comparable to a major airline? Do you enjoy working for NetJets?

Thanks.
- Unchilled

The pay at NetJets doesn't come close to what I was making at USAirways, but it does beat what I was making as of 12/3/01...$0.
The pay will come up as contracts get negotiated. The main thing I was looking for was stability. I believe (could be wrong) that the fractional industry is just beginning to tap it's market. NetJets is in the forefront of this emerging market which will provide ample advancement opportunities, and the seniority generated by this growth will provide the schedule and stability I'm looking for.
So far I would say I am very pleased with NetJets. We do much more work on the road than pilots at the airlines do. We order fuel, pick up catering, stock the airplane, load the bags, brief the passengers, confirm ground transportation enroute, clean the cabin, etc... This is not good or bad, just different from what I came from. These things are just part of the job and rapidly become second nature.
Two thumbs up so far. Talk to me in January when I'm in Aspen at midnight trying to put the engine covers on in 40 knot wind...
 

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