Happenings at CommutAir

[SweetLou]

Hey everyone- I've been checking CommutAir's website for over a year and noticed that they weren't accepting resumes. The other day I noticed that now they are hiring throughout the balance of 2006 due to "company expansion." Also I have seen some recent interview gouges off aviationinterviews from this past month. I was just curious if anyone knew what was going on over there and how much hiring will be done. I don't quite meet their mins yet but after about another month of instructing I should be there. I know that CA isn't the best paying job but coming from Albany, NY I would have a place to live and I think it would be worthwhile to learn how to hand fly a 1900 in the weather before I jump into an RJ. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

 

[CA1900]

Well, I can tell you what little the pilot group knows:

We're planning on adding another (larger turboprop) type to our fleet "sometime this year." We have a class of 8 pilots starting in mid-May.

There you go. That's everything they've told us.


I will tell you that Albany was drastically downsized in the recent past , and there are a lot of guys who were kicked out, and who are trying to get back here. (We went from serving 20 cities from here to one, and from about 70 pilots to about 10 based here.) So the odds of getting it as a new-hire are slim to none, and it may take the better part of a year to get here. You're most likely to get Cleveland, as that's where the bulk of our flying is. Plattsburgh is a possibility, too. ALB and BOS, not a chance, honestly. Boston was downsized, too, and is overstaffed -- those guys get shipped off to CLE constantly to do trips.

If this new fleet type ever actually happens, it will be in Cleveland, and eventually that may push some of the Beeches back to the east coast. But I think that'll be a long way off, so plan on commuting from Albany if you do come here.

It's good experience and a fun airplane, but as you noted, the pay is atrocious, and hasn't gone up in six years. Having a place to live already will definitely help. A side job selling fake Rolexes would probably be better.

 

[SweetLou]

Well, I can tell you what little the pilot group knows:

We're planning on adding another (larger turboprop) type to our fleet "sometime this year." We have a class of 8 pilots starting in mid-May.

There you go. That's everything they've told us.


I will tell you that Albany was drastically downsized in the recent past , and there are a lot of guys who were kicked out, and who are trying to get back here. (We went from serving 20 cities from here to one, and from about 70 pilots to about 10 based here.) So the odds of getting it as a new-hire are slim to none, and it may take the better part of a year to get here. You're most likely to get Cleveland, as that's where the bulk of our flying is. Plattsburgh is a possibility, too. ALB and BOS, not a chance, honestly. Boston was downsized, too, and is overstaffed -- those guys get shipped off to CLE constantly to do trips.

If this new fleet type ever actually happens, it will be in Cleveland, and eventually that may push some of the Beeches back to the east coast. But I think that'll be a long way off, so plan on commuting from Albany if you do come here.

It's good experience and a fun airplane, but as you noted, the pay is atrocious, and hasn't gone up in six years. Having a place to live already will definitely help. A side job selling fake Rolexes would probably be better.

Thanks for all the info. I had no idea that Albany was downsized so much. I remember when I was doing some of my initial training out of ALB when CommutAir was still flying USAirways Express. It seemed like that place was swarming with 1900's. By the way do you know how tough they are on mins to get on. I have heard in the past that people have gotten on with lower time than published, but I also recently heard that if you fill out the online resume and dont have the 900 and 100 then your resume immediately gets rejected.

 

[shamrock]

We're planning on adding another (larger turboprop) type to our fleet "sometime this year."

So is this "plan" any different from all the previous "plans" that involved larger aircraft or can you continue to take "sometime this year" to mean "sometime this year, this decade, this century, ah hell, we don't know we just need something to say"?

 

[CA1900]

LOL, Shamrock

Well, the cynic in me (and you know it's there) says that we've been "buying bigger planes" for fifteen years running, and I don't see anything new parked up front. So I take it with a big grain of salt. That said, we actually did get some financing for it from Laurus Funds, so maybe it'll actually happen? Who knows? I'll treat it like finding $100 in the laundry -- a nice surprise, but don't make plans around it.


And SweetLou (I love that movie), they have bent on the minimums in the past, but that was when they were much higher. But they haven't budged on the 900/100 since that became the minimum, even when we were desperate for people to fill the classes. (We turned away some of the CoEx furloughees because they didn't meet those hours, in fact.)