Is Expressjet The Best???

[ED GRIMLEY]

Not you for sure....

You cannot be serious. That is what you came up with. OOOOOOHHH. The GG has spoken. Give me a break and grow a pair.

Thanks for the vine and thanks for the time. I am out!

 

[Flechas]

A plane leaves Los Angeles airport under the control of a Jewish captain. His copilot is Chinese. It's the first time they've flown
together and an awkward silence between the two seems to indicate a mutual dislike.
Once they reach cruising altitude, the Jewish captain activates the auto pilot, leans back in his seat, and mutters, "I don't like Chinese."
"No like Chinese?" asks the copilot, "why not?"
"You people bombed Pearl Harbor, that's why!"
"No, no," the copilot protests, "Chinese not bomb Peahl Hahbah! That Japanese, not Chinese."
"Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese... doesn't matter, you're all alike!"
There's a few minutes of silence.

"No rike Jews!" the copilot suddenly announces.
"Why not?" asks the captain.
"Jews sink Titanic," the copilot responds.
"Jews didn't sink the Titanic!" exclaims the captain, "It was an iceberg!"
"Iceberg, Goldberg, Greenberg, Rosenberg, no mattah... all same!"

 

[Tram]

HAHAHA

A "insert your regional here" pilot and a "insert a regional you like to bag here" pilot walk are walking down the sidewalk and they both go into the bathroom.. They both walk up to urinals side by side and do their business.

The "good" regional pilot walks out side, while the "not so good regional" pilot goes and washes his hands and then walks out and looks at the "good" regional pilot and says "hey man, didn't they teach you to wash your hands after you used the bathroom, in IOE" and the "good regional pilot" looks at the guy and says "nah man, they just taught us not to pi$$ on our hands."

 

[NoJoy]

Nice work Spin- keep up the good work! The last time I got this many views on a thread was in the cargo section-
Now back to the regular program.

 

[Flechas]

Nah, the regular program sucks!!

 

[Alchemy]

I was hired at Expressjet with 800 hrs. I was never an intern nor did I attend ATP, Gulfstream, or any other type of 141 school. I never attended an RJ prep course either. Fact is, back in late 04, they would hire anyone with more than 600 hrs and 100 hrs multi as long as you had a commercial, knew systems on the twins you'd flown, knew IFR terminology, charts, and regs, expressed a rudimentary knowledge of turbine aircraft, could organize your logbook and paperwork for the interview, didn't look/act like a total jackass, and could pass the background check.

Why are we bashing CHQ? Sure they may be screwing with comair and ASA, but as long as they stay out of our hair I have no beef with them. I would've loved to work at CHQ as well, but Expressjet called first and I got the first job I interviewed for. As far as the EMB170, of course I'd like to see better payrates at CHQ but I'm not going to pretend for a second that we could do a whole lot better. I doubt we'd eclipse their captain payscales by more than a dollar or two if we got them, and the FO pay rates would probably be the same as the 145 (since we don't have seperate FO scales for the 135/145 either).

As it stands I've been really happy with my job at Expressjet so far. I'm prepared for a possible 5-6 year upgrade, but the senior FO payscales are quite liveable.

One thing worth mentioning, continental cannot "take planes away from Expressjet and award them to another regional". If they decide to reduce Expressjet's RJ flying for continental, Express gets the option to takeover the leases themselves and fly them on another codeshare or under their own banner. So there goes that doomsday theory.

The two most likely scenarios IMO:

1. CAL sustains Xjet flying at its current level after 2007 and awards some additional flying to another feeder, like skywest or CHQ in order to start a price war.

2. CAL sustains Xjet flying at its current level after 2007 and decides it doesn't need anymore RJ's. Xjet stays the same size and no one else comes in either. (seems most likely to me, can't really see CAL needing more than 274 RJ's, the growth will be in turboprops, of which Xjet will no be a part).


Also, please don't lump ATP in with gulfstream. ATP does not make students pay to sit in the seat of a required crewmember in an air carrier operation. Big difference there.

 

[hbrow15]

1st, If CAL wants to cancel the agreement with XJT they will have to inform us no sooner than 18 months( Aug 05) and no later than 12 months (Jan 06) so in the next few months whats going to happen will be known, so why we worry about what we cant control is a mystery to me.

2nd, as far as the 170's no one other than CAL will fly 170's for CAL, scope clause only allows the airplane on mainline. Since management did not get this removed as part of the recent givebacks it's not likely to change, besides CAL is focusing on international not domestic.

As far as the airplanes go, if CAL replaces XJT the agreement allows XJT to pick which airplanes they want to keep and fly the others to wherever CAL wants them and give them the keys( i.e. CAL will get all the 135's and ER's). They replaced skywest with colgan since they are cheaper and indicated they would get bigger airplanes, skywest was due to be gone months ago, if you have such a time replaceing a few turboprops how easily do you thing it would be to replace a 274 RJ operation.

 

[jetexas]

How is 5 years 'quick'?

If you're at Eagle.

 

[bg1686]

I know a lot of people who have been hired at XJET in the last 9 months (I was one of them)...There was a period in Dec '04, Jan, Feb, Mar of '05 where there were a lot of 600-700 hour pilots hired. (Maybe an average of about 5 people per 32 person class). However, there were a lot of problems with these classes during training and IOE, so they were a lot more selective in the classes that came after that, and they could be because Independence, Chicago Express, Etc. had put a ton of experienced 121 FO's (and CAs) on the street. A lot of these guys (and girls) were from All ATPs and some were from other places. The All ATP guys in my class were at about 700 hours TT and were some of the best in our class (probably due atleast in part to their extremely high multi-time)...The other low time guys, did not do as well but I believe that they all made it through. However, to say that XJET is hiring a bunch of low time pilots is a false statement. The average time of the pilots in my class, the class before me, and the three classes after me (160 newhire FOs) was about 1100-1200 hours TT with about 100-200 multi. I knew or atleast talked to most of the 160 people (I spent 2 1/2 months in the damn Holiday Inn with them) and I would say that no more than 30 of them had less than 800 hours. This has all but stopped today...Our HR department will not give you an interview with those qualifications right now. However, thats not to say that there are not a few exceptions to the rule, but the classes in training and in IOE at the moment are almost exclusively former 121 pilots with some charter and corp. mixed in. It should also be said that our union went to bat for the furloughed Indy pilots, by convincing our management that it would be beneficial to give preferential and expedited interviews to these guys...I am glad that they did because getting furloughed sucks...I know, and I am glad that we could help them out.

As far as the work environment at XJT...It is unbelievably awesome. My Chief pilots are awesome...They have helped me out a lot. Some times I have to remind myself that they are the enemy...MANAGEMENT. j/k I am very happy here...It is a lot better than my former 121 employer...NIGHT AND DAY. However, everyone that I know at CHQ loves working there too...Same with Skywest, Air Whiskey, and ComAir. I have good friends at all. I also have good friends at Eagle, Mesa, TSA, and Pinnacle...None of them have anything good to say about their companies. However, I have not worked at any of these companies so I am not trying to bad mouth them except for Mesa (the company, not the pilots) and their CEO, Johnny O <~~~~not a fan of this dude!

 

[Spinplate]

I know a lot of people who have been hired at XJET in the last 9 months (I was one of them)...There was a period in Dec '04, Jan, Feb, Mar of '05 where there were a lot of 600-700 hour pilots hired. (Maybe an average of about 5 people per 32 person class). However, there were a lot of problems with these classes during training and IOE, so they were a lot more selective in the classes that came after that, and they could be because Independence, Chicago Express, Etc. had put a ton of experienced 121 FO's (and CAs) on the street. A lot of these guys (and girls) were from All ATPs and some were from other places. The All ATP guys in my class were at about 700 hours TT and were some of the best in our class (probably due atleast in part to their extremely high multi-time)...The other low time guys, did not do as well but I believe that they all made it through. However, to say that XJET is hiring a bunch of low time pilots is a false statement. The average time of the pilots in my class, the class before me, and the three classes after me (160 newhire FOs) was about 1100-1200 hours TT with about 100-200 multi. I knew or atleast talked to most of the 160 people (I spent 2 1/2 months in the dang Holiday Inn with them) and I would say that no more than 30 of them had less than 800 hours. This has all but stopped today...Our HR department will not give you an interview with those qualifications right now. However, thats not to say that there are not a few exceptions to the rule, but the classes in training and in IOE at the moment are almost exclusively former 121 pilots with some charter and corp. mixed in. It should also be said that our union went to bat for the furloughed Indy pilots, by convincing our management that it would be beneficial to give preferential and expedited interviews to these guys...I am glad that they did because getting furloughed sucks...I know, and I am glad that we could help them out.

As far as the work environment at XJT...It is unbelievably awesome. My Chief pilots are awesome...They have helped me out a lot. Some times I have to remind myself that they are the enemy...MANAGEMENT. j/k I am very happy here...It is a lot better than my former 121 employer...NIGHT AND DAY. However, everyone that I know at CHQ loves working there too...Same with Skywest, Air Whiskey, and ComAir. I have good friends at all. I also have good friends at Eagle, Mesa, TSA, and Pinnacle...None of them have anything good to say about their companies. However, I have not worked at any of these companies so I am not trying to bad mouth them except for Mesa (the company, not the pilots) and their CEO, Johnny O <~~~~not a fan of this dude!

great........... My 2 interview coming up are with Pinnacle and Mesa! Xjet called me 2 weeks ago and asked for an updated reume with a ref. # on it, but thats it. Some ppl have told me that they will call in a few weeks after that with a small phone interview and then maybe get asked for a formal interview in Houston. Does that sound right???

 

[Superpilot92]

Yes it does sound right. However dont bypass an interview anywhere else until you are hired somewhere. Interview everywhere you can and then you can decide. Good luck And remember no news is better than bad news. Generally if they dont want to interview you will get the thanks but no thanks pretty quick.

 

[bg1686]

I agree with superpilot, that does sound right...and I also agree that you should go to your Mesa and Pinnacle interviews and try your best to get those jobs, because no matter what anyone says, those companies are better than flight instructing or working for some crappy charter company. Just remember that a lot of people will go and work for Mesa, or Pinnacle, or another company that isn't their first choice, and then jump over to a better company in six months. After you have gone through any 121 training program (and successfully completed it) and been online for a couple of months, you are extremely marketable to almost every other company. I have four freinds who worked for one company and jumped over to others within 6 or 7 months. One went from Skyway to Comair, one went from TSA to Skywest, one went from Eagle to Expressjet, and the other went from Mesa to Expressjet. All four of them have just finished training at their new companies and are much happier. However, by going to work for their previous companies for 6 months, they incresed their chances of getting hired at the company that they wanted. So don't pass anything up (except for Great Lakes...you WOULD be better off flight instructing...$15/hr and $1.00/hr perdiem). Just remember, DO NOT sign any training contracts!!! You don't want to get stuck at some crappy company for 15 months. Good luck.

 

[bg1686]

Superpilot, where are you based?

 

[Spinplate]

I agree with superpilot, that does sound right...and I also agree that you should go to your Mesa and Pinnacle interviews and try your best to get those jobs, because no matter what anyone says, those companies are better than flight instructing or working for some crappy charter company. Just remember that a lot of people will go and work for Mesa, or Pinnacle, or another company that isn't their first choice, and then jump over to a better company in six months. After you have gone through any 121 training program (and successfully completed it) and been online for a couple of months, you are extremely marketable to almost every other company. I have four freinds who worked for one company and jumped over to others within 6 or 7 months. One went from Skyway to Comair, one went from TSA to Skywest, one went from Eagle to Expressjet, and the other went from Mesa to Expressjet. All four of them have just finished training at their new companies and are much happier. However, by going to work for their previous companies for 6 months, they incresed their chances of getting hired at the company that they wanted. So don't pass anything up (except for Great Lakes...you WOULD be better off flight instructing...$15/hr and $1.00/hr perdiem). Just remember, DO NOT sign any training contracts!!! You don't want to get stuck at some crappy company for 15 months. Good luck.

Dont sign a training contract?? Will they even hire you if you dont sign that agreement? How often have any of you done that? I definitely dont want to sign one, who does, but will they change their mind about hiring you if you dont sign that contract? And does anyone know about Pinnacle and MEsa with regards to this? Do they send you the contract before you even start training or do they ask you to sign it the first day and if thats the case will they kick you out of training if you dont sign? Please help me with this one!!

 

[bg1686]

I know that Great Lakes and Mesaba ask you to sign one when you begin training. It is mandatory...meaning that you can't continue employment without signing one. I know that there are a couple of other companies out there that make you sign one, but I wouldn't. Remember, your first year at most regionals, they can fire you for almost anything that they want. Most of these training contracts will require you to pay the entire sum of your training costs immediately upon termination, even if they decide to fire you. Imagine getting called into the chief pilots office and told that you were fired for calling in sick too many times, or because you missed a trip and then on top of that, he tells you that you owe the company $7500...IMMEDIATELY!!! Or they will take you to court. I don't know about you, but I think that it would be hard to come up with that much cash on first year FO pay. No, don't sign one, I don't think that Mesa or Pinnacle will make you sign one, but that may have changed. However, when I interviewed with Mesa, they made me pay them $55 cash at the interview. They told me that it was an application fee...lol In hindsight, I should have just gone to the hotel bar with that $55 and drank until I caught my flight home. Most of the "Quality" airlines DO NOT make you sign a training contract. Usually (but not always), if they have to make you sign a training contract, that tells me that they are having a hard time keeping their pilots from quitting and going somewhere else in their first year of employment. I have interviewed with 10 regionals and have been offered (or accepted) jobs from 6 of them...It seemed to me that the ones that wanted a contract from me were not quality companies. This was based on MY experiences during my interviews with them. The only one that did want a contract that I might have gone and worked for was Mesaba, but their upgrade time was extremely long, however, I really was impressed with their interviewers...They seemed like a great bunch of people.

 

[Spinplate]

Thx for the info BG!! Everyone say goodbye to the titties!!! I have to change my avatar!

 

[FlyinScotsman]

Thx for the info BG!! Everyone say goodbye to the titties!!! I have to change my avatar!

Good bye honey its been fun!

 

[Superpilot92]

Superpilot, where are you based?

EWR based for the rest of this month and on 7-31 i will then be IAH based. Only sat in EWR for 2 and a half months before getting Houston. I am a houston native so i will based at home. I cant wait.