Focus Air?

[DogBoy]

I was just curious about Focus Air? They look like a relatively new company.

 

[time builder]

http://airlinepilotcentral.com/airlines/cargo/focus_air.html

 

[lear24]

Can anyone at Focus comment on how things are going? The older threads talk about the promise of schedules improving once things got going, what kind of schedules do you guys have now? Are you still home based, and is that program still supposed to go away? Is management still working to make it a nice place to work?

 

[freightdogfred]

Yea...Let's hear it from the focus guys...

 

[L-1011-500]

Well it depends on who you ask at Focus whether they think it's improved or not. Some guys are still getting screwed on travel as the company will wait till the last second to book you a ticket then say a business ticket is too expensive. But if you hold their feet to the fire you still get business travel. As for schedules I guess mine has gotten better since this summer as I have not been out on the road longer than 16 days (I was home by 4pm on day 16). The last 3 pairings I was out 14-15 days and off for 11-12 days. There has been a lot of turmoil since the cadets all got the boot. Many of them were working in flight ops and most actually did a pretty good job. Since they all left at the same time it has been spotty at best as far as support from Ops. As far as the new management making it better to work the jury is still out in my opinion. I think there are some empires that have been built in FLL and they are hard to change. I keep hearing from guys on the line that the DO knows whats wrong here but isn't getting any support to change it. So I guess we'll see pretty soon.
My gut feeling is still 50-50 so far. My only worry here is the management team in FLL has no idea what it takes to go beyond what we are now. Flight operations in FLL seems to have all your paperwork Eff'd up more than half the time you show up to fly. Nobody can make a descision after 5pm FLL time so you are hindered by the fact all your airplanes are on the other side of the clock. The guys on the line are pretty good to fly with for the most part. The flying is fun if you like this sort of flying. Lufthansa is a great company to fly for. Pretty off the wall destinations and way too much catering. Never thought I'd see so much food on a freighter for a basic crew.
But I am still home based and have not heard anything to change it. It's not the best carrier I have worked for and I have worked for many many that were much worse. I stay in really nice hotels and the flying is for the most part challenging and fun for me. The travel to and from home is a bit tedious as you have to stay on them or you will get a coach ticket on some airline you never heard of 13 time zones away. Like I said earlier most guys getting screwed on that dont say anything to the right people to make it stop. The MX is OK and the airplanes are well freightors. It's not a shiny passenger operation. I say March will be the timeframe we are going to see if this can fly or not. In the meantime I am doing everything I can to make it work out as I like the kind of flying this offers and I am sick of going through ground schools.

 

[BE400]

Didn't you guys just have a change at D.O or chief pilot recently? If so, how is that improving things?