Flight Options?

[Whoosh!]

Dude, seriously, use the search function. I know guys at eagle and FLOPS is definitely NOT career advancement. You're going from bad to bad/really bad. Seems like about once every couple months now we get a guy who posts on this board saying he's thinking about going to Options and wonders what we all think- we respond and they quickly realize how bad a decision it would be. FLOPS is THE WORST in the fractional business and is almost guaranteed not to be around much longer, at least in its current form. Let's see if we can answer some of these questions...

"Things look pretty grim at my company." FLOPS is no flower garden either. "I am a five year f/o with no chance of an upgrade." Again, welcome to FLOPS. "My QOL of life is rather bad." Are we still talking about FLOPS? "Our contract is not amendable until 2011." Ah, NO contract at FLOPS. "I would think even a fractional in negotiations would be better than this.?" At least you gave it the old college try on this one. "Is there any guess when a TA might be reached?" Probably never. Even if one is reached, it will be pretty sh1tty. Management has directly indicated they have no intention of budging on issues that would make the contract worth while. "How often are they meeting?" Once, maybe twice a month? "Is the company negotiating in good faith?" Absolutely not. "I originally considered Flight Options so I would not have to commute. Also, once the contract is settled, Flight Options may be the place to be." You will not find any sane, rational individual who is familiar with the fractional industry who will agree with you on this. The other companies are so far ahead in market share, management quality, infrastructure, reputation, and backing its rediculous. FLOPS is not at all what it once was and is now pretty much in an irreversable spiral. This is probably the most detrimental line of thought you could take. "These are just some of the things my family has been thinking about. On another note, is hiring only due to attrition?" Pretty much. NO new deliveries. FLOPS can't afford them and is now selling airplanes to get short term cash. Attrition is far exceeding any hiring. Most who interviewed won't take the offer. "Who has been going to Flight Options?" Desperate, desperate men.

Listen to people who are familiar with this company, man. Don't be stupid.

 

[Just Peachy]

FLOPS is bad news

Nice post Propilotfrac.......

As bad as you guys have it, we were NEVER that bad off. Yes, we were willing to STFD and lose our jobs over the contract but at least the company stayed within their legal bounds.

Might of had something to do with Warren owning the whole mess and backfireing having egg on his face.....

 

[Captain Dork]

The real deal

It seems like there is a ton of misinformation flowing all around about FO. I have been here nine years, and here is my version of the current situation.

FlightOptions has been badly managed for many years. There is no credible replacements currently down the road. It is my belief, that is by design (a highly insecure senior management). The number two guy, and the VP of Flight Operations are not promotable. The number two guy does not understand the basic business, affluent Americans, the aviation culture, and is socially ill-at-ease, he also doesn't look so handsome. The VP of Flight Operations is unfortunatelly intellectually not adequate. His writing skills, thought process, and presentation are what you might see in a small FBO charter department operating C310's. The CEO must have read the book "How I Did It" by Frank Lorenzo, and fell in love. Then he shared the book with Orenstien from Mesa (who is one of our customers). Together they determined that if the unions never broke Lorenzo's kneecaps, then they would be safe, also.

FlightOptions pilots are probably some of the safest and most experienced pilots around (seeing as the average experience level in each airplane type, and this type of flying, glorified ad hoc charter, is so high). I am an eight year captain and only 1/3 up the seniority ladder. We haven't had a mishap for a long, long time. There haven't been any newbies for four years, Guess why?

Around seventy-five percent of the pilot group won't cut the company any slack. Airplanes break where they break. Nobody has to make any special effort to grind this operation to a crawl. The airplanes are getting old, and our maintenance management is not keen.

Everything outsourceable is assigned to the lowest bidder. We have terrible paintjobs. Some items never get resolved as they would at a manufacturers service center. The trouble gets piled up in a long term way. The last six months have been especially ugly, as anything deferrable is repaired at a much later date. And this includes passenger convenience items like tempeture controllers, light switches, DVD's, seat adjustments, and stained carpets. So these are glaring deficiencies, per customer perception, I believe.

Management does not really understand the private jet marketplace. It comes from the airlines, where they failed there (MetroJet and USairways Express), and tries to duplicate the same screwups, here. We at one time had competent management (hello Ken Combs, Gary Hart, Mike Marada, Stephanie, Jan, Carla, etc).

The anamosity level is so high, this company may eventually fail. I pray before I go to bed "take care of my little ones, and please God, have Santulli buy whatever's left of Travel Air/Flight Options, Amen."

We have tremendous bad-will with the customer base, and have received very critical reportage in both AIN, and Business and Commercial Aviation. Senior management must really underestimate the jounalistic savvy of these operations, because they try to feed them loads of inaccurate information, assuming nobody fact-checks. This backfires.

The current ownership, HIG, doesn't own any well run or happy aviation operations. And Raytheon, the previous owner and founder, didn't seem to have a clue, although Greg Marlowe from corporate, (currently running the Hawker FOB at KVYN) was a the best manager OCC has had.

Any speculation of the companies cash position is just that, complete conjecture. There is no reliable data except the old 10K reports from Raytheon. The company's only bargain is the pilot group. As an eight year captain in a midsized aircraft, I earn what a two year copilot does at Netjets, and work two more days a month, and pay $350 more a month in insurance products. We, the company, pay the same fuel price as everybody else, and true maintenance expense is probably higher than standard.

It is my understanding Netjets earns almost a million dollars, per airframe, pretax, per year. Could we perhaps hire one or two of their managers who are frustrated, or hate Columbus, or really any reason will do.

My last comment is a refutiation of the "you know what you signed up for" argument. In fact I am working for nothing like I signed up for. I joined TravelAir in 2000. It paid wages similar to the rest of the industry. It paid a defined benefit pension that's payout was the same as all the other Raytheon professionals were receiving (around 80K for 25 years sevice at my probable pay level). My insurance cost was modest. I have probably been earning the same real income for about nine years. We also used to have fun at Travel Air, we stayed at good hotels, got rental cars when appropriate, and didn't show up at the airport at five AM, six hours before the first flight of the day.

The union at FlightOptions has sprung out of pilot angst. It is real, it is popular, it is not going away. Very few non-nuts are on the other side. It could also close the doors on this place and most everybody will find similar or better jobs. People say "Aren't you afraid of all those unemployed airline guys?" Well, ah, "no." Reason being, I am typed and experienced in Hawkers, Beechjets, and know King Airs damn well, as are my brothers and sisters in the IBT1108 at this company. And somebody is going to want to ride in the back of them, wherever these airplanes may go.

Pilots are professionals. Many professionals have professional organizations to advance their self interest. My organization is local 1108 of the IBT. My union President is my coworker, Matt Slinghof. My chief negotiator is Bill Hart. I have sat next to both of them for a whole week, with me the PIC. They are also responsible for some bloodshot eyes, and morning nausea. One day we will have other coworkers in these offices, elected from amongst the pilot group.

Funny I should get on a union rant, because in retrospect I should have bolted three years ago to the Continental mainline or United. Our unionization gave me hope.

Well outsiders, this is FlightOptions.

 

[captain dad]

Wow, I am sorry to hear just how bad it is at FLOPS.

I wish you guys all the best. I hope you get it done and turn that place around.

It is silly to think, in this kind of high end market, that kind of stuff would be tolerated by owners? Amazing!

Good Luck.

 

[johnsonrod]

Things look pretty grim at my company. I am a five year f/o with no chance of an upgrade. My QOL of life is rather bad. Our contract is not amendable until 2011. I would think even a fractional in negotiations would be better than this. Is there any guess when a TA might be reached? How often are they meeting? Is the company negotiating in good faith? I originally considered Flight Options so I would not have to commute. Also, once the contract is settled, Flight Options may be the place to be. These are just some of the things my family has been thinking about. On another note, is hiring only due to attrition? Who has been going to Flight Options?

I heard that two newhires were fired during training recently. One was fired because he asked about the salary issue compared to other fracs when the CEO dropped by training. Would you want to work under such a dictatorial regime? Geez, go apply to Netjets, Flexjet, Citationshares and Avantair and continue to build some hours...

 

[B19 Flyer]

Would you want to work under such a dictatorial regime? ..

Kind of like working with a union, eh?

The difference is with a union, the entire company loses their jobs.

 

[B19 Flyer]

It seems like there is a ton of misinformation flowing all around about FO. I have been here nine years, and here is my version of the current situation.

FlightOptions has been badly managed for many years. There is no credible replacements currently down the road. It is my belief, that is by design (a highly insecure senior management). The number two guy, and the VP of Flight Operations are not promotable. The number two guy does not understand the basic business, affluent Americans, the aviation culture, and is socially ill-at-ease, he also doesn't look so handsome. The VP of Flight Operations is unfortunatelly intellectually not adequate. His writing skills, thought process, and presentation are what you might see in a small FBO charter department operating C310's. The CEO must have read the book "How I Did It" by Frank Lorenzo, and fell in love. Then he shared the book with Orenstien from Mesa (who is one of our customers). Together they determined that if the unions never broke Lorenzo's kneecaps, then they would be safe, also.

FlightOptions pilots are probably some of the safest and most experienced pilots around (seeing as the average experience level in each airplane type, and this type of flying, glorified ad hoc charter, is so high). I am an eight year captain and only 1/3 up the seniority ladder. We haven't had a mishap for a long, long time. There haven't been any newbies for four years, Guess why?

Around seventy-five percent of the pilot group won't cut the company any slack. Airplanes break where they break. Nobody has to make any special effort to grind this operation to a crawl. The airplanes are getting old, and our maintenance management is not keen.

Everything outsourceable is assigned to the lowest bidder. We have terrible paintjobs. Some items never get resolved as they would at a manufacturers service center. The trouble gets piled up in a long term way. The last six months have been especially ugly, as anything deferrable is repaired at a much later date. And this includes passenger convenience items like tempeture controllers, light switches, DVD's, seat adjustments, and stained carpets. So these are glaring deficiencies, per customer perception, I believe.

Management does not really understand the private jet marketplace. It comes from the airlines, where they failed there (MetroJet and USairways Express), and tries to duplicate the same screwups, here. We at one time had competent management (hello Ken Combs, Gary Hart, Mike Marada, Stephanie, Jan, Carla, etc).

The anamosity level is so high, this company may eventually fail. I pray before I go to bed "take care of my little ones, and please God, have Santulli buy whatever's left of Travel Air/Flight Options, Amen."

We have tremendous bad-will with the customer base, and have received very critical reportage in both AIN, and Business and Commercial Aviation. Senior management must really underestimate the jounalistic savvy of these operations, because they try to feed them loads of inaccurate information, assuming nobody fact-checks. This backfires.

The current ownership, HIG, doesn't own any well run or happy aviation operations. And Raytheon, the previous owner and founder, didn't seem to have a clue, although Greg Marlowe from corporate, (currently running the Hawker FOB at KVYN) was a the best manager OCC has had.

Any speculation of the companies cash position is just that, complete conjecture. There is no reliable data except the old 10K reports from Raytheon. The company's only bargain is the pilot group. As an eight year captain in a midsized aircraft, I earn what a two year copilot does at Netjets, and work two more days a month, and pay $350 more a month in insurance products. We, the company, pay the same fuel price as everybody else, and true maintenance expense is probably higher than standard.

It is my understanding Netjets earns almost a million dollars, per airframe, pretax, per year. Could we perhaps hire one or two of their managers who are frustrated, or hate Columbus, or really any reason will do.

My last comment is a refutiation of the "you know what you signed up for" argument. In fact I am working for nothing like I signed up for. I joined TravelAir in 2000. It paid wages similar to the rest of the industry. It paid a defined benefit pension that's payout was the same as all the other Raytheon professionals were receiving (around 80K for 25 years sevice at my probable pay level). My insurance cost was modest. I have probably been earning the same real income for about nine years. We also used to have fun at Travel Air, we stayed at good hotels, got rental cars when appropriate, and didn't show up at the airport at five AM, six hours before the first flight of the day.

The union at FlightOptions has sprung out of pilot angst. It is real, it is popular, it is not going away. Very few non-nuts are on the other side. It could also close the doors on this place and most everybody will find similar or better jobs. People say "Aren't you afraid of all those unemployed airline guys?" Well, ah, "no." Reason being, I am typed and experienced in Hawkers, Beechjets, and know King Airs damn well, as are my brothers and sisters in the IBT1108 at this company. And somebody is going to want to ride in the back of them, wherever these airplanes may go.

Pilots are professionals. Many professionals have professional organizations to advance their self interest. My organization is local 1108 of the IBT. My union President is my coworker, Matt Slinghof. My chief negotiator is Bill Hart. I have sat next to both of them for a whole week, with me the PIC. They are also responsible for some bloodshot eyes, and morning nausea. One day we will have other coworkers in these offices, elected from amongst the pilot group.

Funny I should get on a union rant, because in retrospect I should have bolted three years ago to the Continental mainline or United. Our unionization gave me hope.

Well outsiders, this is FlightOptions.

Well documented on these boards, however, it is well known that bringing a union onto a property for the first time, and that is any business, not just an air carrier, will stagnate the company and make things worse for years.

Why would you have hung out if you weren't happy with your experience and gone to greener pastures?

I understand the commitment to company, been there and done that. However, even if the union gets a CBA, it doesn't mean there is going to be an improvement in how the company is operated.

It only means more cost and administration to a company already in upheaval.

It's clear to everybody, I don't like unions because of what unions have done to me.

However, what I fail to understand the most, is why somebody would hang in there when they knew the jig was up?

The union isn't going to make any improvements, and there are better companies out there. if anything, bringing the union onto the property is going to make things worse for three years or more, then there are another couple of years transition. That makes things into a nightmare.

Why would you not take control of your career and go elsewhere if things were that bad?

 

[dime line]

B19= Moron

 

[B19 Flyer]

B19= Moron

So, is that picture Beavis or Butthead? I really want to know who your hero is.

 

[Galaxy]

Why would you not take control of your career and go elsewhere if things were that bad? -B19


Because it is our job as professionals to control and to raise the bar and end low paying crappy flying jobs. -Galaxy

Contract or Close the Doors.