I wrote this to someone who is interviewing, so if you are thinking about coming here please take a minute and read this first. Goodnight!
~Dude please just listen to us! This is not the place you want to be, we all wish someone had told us not to come here. And for the dude that TRIED to question my post about it being the worst all jet regional... well it sure does look like all the other pilots that work here agree with me!
Let’s Review some things.
Reserve in Charlotte is right now TODAY! 2 years (and I'm not talking about getting a build up line maybe, I'm talking to get a hard line)
Charlotte is the only base you can commute from - Dayton and Knoxville if you’re LUCKY, you might be able to commute on one side. Not one line was commutable on both sides out of Dayton and has not been in months. Corporate makes them like that on purpose.
The MAX days off company wide is usually 14 days (sometimes 15 on a build up)
Very very few lines award all weekends off... So you've got that going for you if you work here 20 years!
They mess up the pay checks quite a bit
The pilot group can't all get on one page because we have too many people with different agenda's. PSA has 5 year FO's waiting to upgrade; Lifers; guys that have interviews soon with majors; and Jet for Jobs guys who are pissed because they are being held 9 month. So everyone wants the union to fight for different things so most of the time nothing is accomplished.
Our contract is very weak, and the company violates it all the time, and the only thing you can do is file a grievance and that will take months if not years to be heard. The company knows this so they just break the rules because all that ever happens is they get a slap on the wrist.
Things we have or don't have:
A decent FO pay rate - 29 bucks an hour second year, and 31 for a 3rd year.
What this means is that you'll be poor very poor. Because not only does the rate suck but other things make it hard for you to make some extra money.
NO duty rigs
Half pay for a dead head
Hot reserve at the airport for 10 hours that they only pay you 1.35 an hour for. Most places either don't have hot reserve or you're paid a Min of 3 or 4 hours if you do have to do it
Schedules that have so few days off it's almost impossible to pick up open trips
The open time is MAYBE updated once a day, but never over the weekend.
Which means it's not LIVE so you could be trying to pick up something that already been awarded to someone else. And it will take a day or two to find out if you are approved or denied, and by then you have missed out on something else.
Trip swapping or Dropping very hard if not impossible, Sometimes you can trade a 4 day for a 4 day but never drop it all together.
If you drop a 3 day and pick up a 4 day you will NOT be paid premium pay for your extra day at work. Otherwise known as SDO pay. The company seems to think that there is a difference between picking up a 4 day and having a 3 day and just finding an out and back (1 day trip) in open time and picking that up. NOW DOES THAT MAKE SENSE TO YOU? See what I'm getting at flight school guys? Do you see the scum bag style of Management we have here?
No trip touch for vacations. That means they will fly you right up to the afternoon before the first day of your vacation.
TWO round bidding. Which sucks because if you are right on the line of getting round one or two you never know how many people will bypass round one which means you won't know how far down the list you'll be pushed.
If you’re on reserve and you're a commuter have fun because they don't care and will give you 5am hot reserve your first day and fly you till midnight on your last day. Kind of like I'm doing tomorrow!
You will be required to be current on both airplanes and will not be paid near enough money for your troubles.
HUGE sits at the airport in between flight, I'm doing 4 hours tomorrow.
Trips like this:
First day show at 5am. 6 Legs worth 4 hours of pay
Second day 2 legs worth maybe 2 hours of pay. Get to PNS check for bed bugs at the Microtel (yes the F-ing Microtel)
Show time changes to late shift. day 3 maybe 3 or 4 legs. Get to Savannah late looking for food and you'll notice there is none for miles (a complete violation of the contract, but does this get changed NOOO and you'll lie in bed asking yourself why do I pay union dues?) So once you can't fall asleep from hunger you can walk down to the lobby and buy your ass some microwave meatball from the skany chick that works there. Oh and PS they lock the doors to the hotel because it's in such a nice part of town, I spent Christmas there and I had the microwave food for Christmas diner!
Day 4 late show... 6 or 7 legs or even better maybe 3 or 4 legs with a two 3 hour sits thrown in. Get home mad late!
Overnights with people way older then your parents who just want to slam click. Which in reality won't matter because the overnight is probably around nothing fun or it's so short you just need to go to bed.
A commuter policy that has not been approved by the union and was only put out there to try and make nice when the 900 negotiations were going on. The commuter policy is not recognized by the union and is basically useless, and has some messed up things they can do to you when you call in and try to use it.
Oh ya, The 900's. About every few months the company will come to us and ask if we want to fly them for 50 seat rates. The pilot group will say "shove it" and then the company will take back the offer instead of negotiate.
A Fleet that was promised to be 80 airplanes that only grew to around 40. But hey we'll still take all the guys laid off from Mainline even though US Air didn't hold up their end of the deal. Isn't bankruptsy fun!
You will fly with really cool nice guys and girls - but they have been beaten down for so long it's sucked the life out of them and all they do is complain the whole trip, which will make you complain eventually!
Hmm have I said enough PSA Guys or should I go on... And for you guys that don't work here please don't think I'm just being bitchy, any PSA guy on here can back this up.
Anyways, the list goes on and on and on
- For argument sake, you can ask yourself is Mesa or a place like that worse?
Let’s see....
They have almost the same terrible pay rate (which is a few bucks below places like express jet, sky west etc)
They don't have the best contracts...
But wait they do have a fast upgrades
And they do have some growth
And they're probably not part of this crappy US Airways management team.
- - Most of us wish we had someone tell us this before we came, so take this knowledge and put your resume in with another place. They all suck but they don't all suck this bad my friends!
--- If some of us had been smarter and not held out hope we would be gone. The only reason most of us FO's are sticking around is because we really thought things might get better but they didn't and now we have invested too much time. Please don't make the same mistakes we made.
Look at it like this? Is it to our (PSA FO's) advantages to get on here and tell you this? We NEED you to come so we can get some seniority. Thing is that it's so so bad that we can't let you make this mistake!
~ ~ ~ So my flight school friends what have we learned? I think we have learned there is no reason to come here!
