Flight Express question

[EatSleepFly]

Gary is FLX's secret weapon...once you talk to him you can't help but want to work for him.

We need one of those where I work!

With our "recruiting" department, I'm not surprised we're understaffed.

 

[Rxflyer]

Hmmm. Wonder if BNA is looking. (Although they crunched a Baron yesterday with a balky MLG).

 

[1flier]

Flight Express Upgrade

Boris a 3 month upgrade now!! Wow, I wish it was like that when I left early last year or I would have never left. My roommate in training took 14 months to upgrade. Its nice to hear that upgrades are coming faster. Gary the recruiter says its getting harder to fill with the regionals hiring like they are. For the questions about how much they log per month. My run out of BFM was 3.5 a day then my last day on the run another stop was added which put it at 4.5 - 5 per day. Duty time was 13 - 13.5 hours a day. A pretty cake run, BFM-MSY-BTR-MSY-Lafeyette LA-BTR then on the ground for 4 hours. BTR-MSY-BFM. All day run 0500 - 1800. Basically 42K a year at current pay, weekends off. Mobile actually wasnt a bad place to live. Low cost of living, decent nitelife and close to alot of other places like New Orleans, Biloxi and Pensacola. If you go to FLX, its a good company to start or stay with. You learn alot, the training is fast but doable if you apply yourself. Great bunch of pilots to work with and while I was there management didn't bother you. You do your job and they are not looking over your shoulder. You will learn to fly IFR that is for sure but I was never questioned if I delayed a flight for thunderstorms on the field or below mins. The memory flows are similar to what you may find in 121 training so it makes the transition easier. Safe flying.

 

[Boris Badenov]

This thread is worth it just to hear from the "graduates of the program" (that's what my mom used to call people who taught special ed. She was a teacher). But seriously. Yeah, a guy who I think was on his first day of flying the baron had a gear leg fold up on him in BNA yesterday. Not by any means how things roll around here as a general rule. Obviously, I'm biased towards CPS maintenance (these guys would never let anything like that happen!), but of course even the LESSER maintenance bases have the occasional problem. That said, I've flown all over the system, and the stuff that really matters generally works...more importantly if it doesn't, you write it up and don't fly and no one says anything about it.

PS. If you like, feel free to private message me with questions.

PPS. 1flier: Yeah, the times have come down. I think a lot of has to do with the fact that we're recruiting a lot more guys who are older/don't have an immediate ambition to "move on". So a lot of them are attached to their base and don't want to move to BNA to get the baron. I've heard that they passed over a lot of florida guys to upgrade the VFR guy to go to the baron at Nashville. That said, if you're willing to move, it's CURRENTLY a 3-4 month upgrade to the twin with a $12.50/duty hour to start. Not too shabby if you're willing to be Gary's little freight pingpong ball.

Glad to have a thread running where it's remembered that we're all out there flying around in the dead of the night so you can go to the bank tomorrow.

 

[RSixer]

Boris a 3 month upgrade now!! Wow, I wish it was like that when I left early last year

Cool, I was working there 2 years and and 5 months before my turn in the Baron came. This was about four years ago.

 

[Jedi_Cheese]

ualdriver: 407 is no more. The only run out of OPF is 405, which is OPF-CRG-SFB-OPF four nights a week and a saturday daytime OPF-ORL-OPF. I know this because I've drawn the short straw and gotten TDY'd on it for two weeks after returning to FLX tail-between-legs. If anyone knows someone who wants to live in Miami and work for FLX, this is a golden opportunity. They can't get anyone to take this run...it's become sort of a purgatory for the unlucky.

What's the downside of this run (other than living in Miami)? It looks like an easy flight run...

 

[Boris Badenov]

Negatives:

1) Miami
2) About half the run is at night
3) Nearly a minimum duty run...relatively low paying

However, every negative is someone else's positive:

1) Some people inexplicably want to live in Miami
2) If you work at night you can actually get things done during the day...go to the doctor, get your license and registration renewed, etc etc. This stuff can be difficult if you have a day run. I think 405 duties on at 1:30 in the morning and is done by 9:30.
3) You're flying a lot on this run...if you want to build time fast, it's not a bad way to do it. Also, you're still only gone for about 8 hours, so you can have a Life Outside Aviation, something the rest of us vaguely remember.

 

[B-J-J Fighter]

Are there any lifers at Flight Express?

 

[Boris Badenov]

I know of at least 2, plus the chief pilot and director of training.

 

[yzf6]

i thought he'd left, but i heard the belgium lifer over missouri the other night. who's the other one?
and about this 3 month baron upgrade.. back in my day we had to wait 3 months just to get on a waiting list to look at a baron!!