Flexjet Vs Eagle

[RJET]

Hi Guys,
I Would To Hear Your Opinions On Whether I Should Leave Eagle For Flexjet.
I Have Been With Eagle A Little Bit Over A Year.
I Have An Interview At Flexjet Soon. Never Flow For A Fractional Before And I Was Just Curious What Is The Lifestyle For A Flexjet Pilot?
What Is The Pay Scale For Fo's?
How Long To Upgrade?
Schedules?
401k Or Pensions?
Thanks In Advanced For Your Info/

 

[Heavy Set]

From what I have heard, Flexjet has the worst schedules of the main fractionals. It just transitioned to a new seniority-based bidding system. So, you would likely be subjected to poor schedules. The Flexjet fleet is very nice with the Challenger 300 being the new star - seems to be a sell-out with many orders to come.

Seriously, I would look at Netjets or Flight Options first with Netjets being my choice. Five positive factors related to Netjets:

1. New contract soon - hopefully better pay levels
2. Big expansion with Beechjets and Sovereigns (nice!) coming on line
3. Better schedules - 7 on/7 off if you choose
4. Many gateways (more than Flexjet) including DFW
5. Awesome fleet from Citation Ultras and soon-to-be Beechjets to Falcons and BBJs

Get an internal recommendation and try for Netjets - I have my stuff in and I have heard great things from my friends who are there now (I'd love to fly the Citation X).

Good luck and let us know what happens.

 

[English]

Personally I'd leave Eagle for Flexjet.

Better pay off the bat, opportunity to upgrade sooner than Eagle, better morale than at Eagle, Better schedules than at Eagle...I could go on but I think you get the point.

Just take the interview and then decide when you are offered the job.

 

[blueshoe707]

Another consideration would be Citation Shares, they are still relatively small but growing. I believe they are hiring and I have not heard anything bad about them to date...


blue

 

[flexlrpilot357]

Flexjet Schedule

From what I have heard, Flexjet has the worst schedules of the main fractionals. It just transitioned to a new seniority-based bidding system. So, you would likely be subjected to poor schedules.

Flexjet has had a seniority-based bidding system for a few years now. It's called "Altitude Preferential Bidding System (PBS)", and it's a product of Ad-Opt. From the website: "FedEx, Emirates Airlines, Virgin Blue and United Airlines selected Altitude's crew management solutions to optimize their flight operations." www.ad-opt.com
Other users include Air Canada, Quantas, South African, Swiss, Expressjet, America West, Comair, Jazz, Mesaba, NMA Airlink, UPS, Cargolux, Air Transat, and Westair.

Every user of this software has different parameters, I'm sure, but for Flexjet, it means that schedules are based on a 28-day month (to match pay periods), and you can work anywhere from 14 to 19 days per period. The "7-day line" was recently discontinued per popular request, so the max you can be on the road is 6 days.

We are hiring quite a few pilots this summer, partly for attrition, partly for growth. We have a competitive pay and benefits package. Pilot bases are So. FL, DFW, NY/EWR, and SoCal. No union, though Teamsters have been trying to weasel in for a few years.

Good job, good equipment, good people.

 

[On Your Six]

I agree with Heavy - the Flexjet fleet is very nice. I like the new Challenger 300. However, you hear about Flexjet pilots leaving Flexjet for Netjets and FLOPS - but you never hear about the reverse. That should tell you something...

I say interview with Flexjet and ask a lot of questions. It doesn't hurt to interview and seek additional information. Ultimately, I'd rather fly for Netjets too.

Good luck with the interview!