Great Lakes Pay

[kailuaboy]

Could you give us what your schedule is like?

 

[Lebowski]

About the training contract...It sucks HOWEVER it is completely legal. One lawyer has taken on around 10 ex lakers to fight it but has lost, havent heard about the appeal process. Several other laywers have looked at it and agree that they can collect training cost if you leave before the contract is up. It's real simple, do your research before you come here, if it's not for you dont put yourself through the all the problems

Hi Tatoo. Whether it is "completely legal" or not is a matter of debate and it continues to be argued in court through the appeals. I personally talked to about six lawyers about it. Half said it may be legal and half said it may not be. No one said it clearly was or wasn't.

It also depends on when you were hired. Myself and a few other guys interviewed and were offered jobs BEFORE there was a training contract and then had the contract more or less forced on us AFTER leaving other jobs to come to Great Lakes. Great Lakes did not disclose to me when I interviewed or was offered a job that a training contract would be required. Is that "completely legal"?

Furthermore, my class was told by union reps that the Teamster Contract, being a binding union contract, would trump the Training Contract. And the Teamsters contract specifically forbids Great Lakes from charging for initial training. Yet Great Lakes forces new hires to sign away their union protection before they can get a job and be protected by the union. The proverbial Catch-22. Is that "completely legal"?

These days, people who go to Great Lakes have some forewarning that there is going to be a training contract, which is the absolute least Lakes should do. I, on the other hand, was offered employment under a completely different set of expectations (i.e., no training contract) and still got sued. This is indicative of what kind of company Great Lakes is and it deserves consideration by anyone who wants to work there. People trying to break into the airline world tend to overlook the training contract, but there can be serious consequences down the road.

Regardless of whether the training contract is legal or not, you're right: it sucks. Do your homework before going to Great Lakes.

 

[Lost]

Schedules average 12-13 days off, more or less depending on the line, and somewhere in the mid 80's for credit. High Speeds (stand ups) run anywhere from 10-12 days off, around 50 hours of flying (75 hour credit). My line this month is 91 hours, 13 days off, w/ mostly 4 day trips and a couple of 2 day trips for example. Many commmuters bid the lines w/ 5day trips and bigger stretches of days off. The majority of the schedules start early the first day and finish late the last day; kind of a bummer for the commuters.

 

[CFI2766]

Whats the main reason that schedules suck? Just the same destinations get old, or what?

 

[Guitar Guy]

I've been gone from there for over a year but there were several reasons why schedules could "suck". Sometimes it was hard to commute, either at the beginning or end of a trip (early start or late end). Then there was the famous 24.1-hour break - it can be darn hard to commute home if you have 24 hours off.

And one of the biggest scheduling nightmares was junior-manning. You think you're finally going to go home until you call in range to DEN on that last leg and hear, "Oh, and the captain (or FO) needs to call crew scheduling when he (or she) gets in." That was NEVER good news.

Overall, if you go there with realistic expectations and can gut out the absurdly low pay, it's still one of the quickest ways to 121 PIC time. And you will get to fly in some very challenging areas with very bare-bones equipment.