Imissmypilot
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jan 13, 2006
- Posts
- 536
NJA looks better, right now....
I've been at flex long enough to see how things work. Radial, if I were you I would go with NJA. There have been several people who have left Flex to go work at NJA and do not regret their decision. In fact one I know of was a 6 year captain at Flex. The upgrade time is a bit longer, but the pay is much better from the start and you have union protection of your job.
Flex is saying upgrade times are under 2 years, which is untrue. I know some guys who have been here over two years who are still "playing captain" and flying as FO. The under two year upgrade is Flex propaganda!
Bailey, they must have had a really lousy deal at Indy if you get more days off here. I know a lot of airline guys that have a much better deal than Flex offers. Not to mention when your on home reserve you have a much longer callout time than 90 minutes. You know where your going, who you will be flying with, and when you are going to be home. Granted none of the fractionals can offer this, but it seems that there is a bit more predictability with NJA than Flex.
911lil, medical insurance at Flex is a joke. The employee deduction is about $3500/yr plus a $5000 out of pocket co-pay. This is the worst medical insurance I have had at any company be it aviation or otherwise. I think even Wal-Mart does better by it's employees in regards to insurance. The insurance isn't a Flex thing, but it is company wide, all Bombardier employees get the same shaft up the ass. Where as NJA, insurance is paid in full by the company. Union dues are paid at about 1.5% of annual salary at NJA someone told me, which is less than $3500 a year for insurance.
The vision program is also a joke. I was going to have to pay about $300 for a normal pair of glasses with this plan!
Club ORD FO, I don't think you've been at Flex very long because that nice
"smaller company" atmosphere is a smoke screen. Give the schedulers time to FYO and they will. They will call you at 3:00am after you've been asleep for about 3 hours thinking you're not out until noon the next day and want you to fly across the country to cover a trip from SFO to LAX and your sitting in PWK! Then there is the deal where they want you to fly up to the 14 hours scheduled and your know if any owners are late you will go over 14. Then you get to the last leg and there is no way you are going to stay in the duty time and end up doing 16 hours of duty so you won't disappoint the owners. All because of this "nice" atmosphere. I think you "should" take pride in your company and work to make it the GREAT company it should be.
be-400xp, I agree with you I think all of these Indy guys need to just to keep drinking the company koolaid. The sad thing is that only about 47 people at Flex have sent in cards to the union out of almost 400 pilots. Sad but true.
Management at Flex promised a long time ago that we would always get better than NJA, but apparently they have selective memory of that promise because we are treated like an inferior professional when compared to NJA pilots.
The bottom line is this, if good men do nothing to change things at Flex soon there will be nothing good to change.
I've been at flex long enough to see how things work. Radial, if I were you I would go with NJA. There have been several people who have left Flex to go work at NJA and do not regret their decision. In fact one I know of was a 6 year captain at Flex. The upgrade time is a bit longer, but the pay is much better from the start and you have union protection of your job.
Flex is saying upgrade times are under 2 years, which is untrue. I know some guys who have been here over two years who are still "playing captain" and flying as FO. The under two year upgrade is Flex propaganda!
Bailey, they must have had a really lousy deal at Indy if you get more days off here. I know a lot of airline guys that have a much better deal than Flex offers. Not to mention when your on home reserve you have a much longer callout time than 90 minutes. You know where your going, who you will be flying with, and when you are going to be home. Granted none of the fractionals can offer this, but it seems that there is a bit more predictability with NJA than Flex.
911lil, medical insurance at Flex is a joke. The employee deduction is about $3500/yr plus a $5000 out of pocket co-pay. This is the worst medical insurance I have had at any company be it aviation or otherwise. I think even Wal-Mart does better by it's employees in regards to insurance. The insurance isn't a Flex thing, but it is company wide, all Bombardier employees get the same shaft up the ass. Where as NJA, insurance is paid in full by the company. Union dues are paid at about 1.5% of annual salary at NJA someone told me, which is less than $3500 a year for insurance.
The vision program is also a joke. I was going to have to pay about $300 for a normal pair of glasses with this plan!
Club ORD FO, I don't think you've been at Flex very long because that nice
"smaller company" atmosphere is a smoke screen. Give the schedulers time to FYO and they will. They will call you at 3:00am after you've been asleep for about 3 hours thinking you're not out until noon the next day and want you to fly across the country to cover a trip from SFO to LAX and your sitting in PWK! Then there is the deal where they want you to fly up to the 14 hours scheduled and your know if any owners are late you will go over 14. Then you get to the last leg and there is no way you are going to stay in the duty time and end up doing 16 hours of duty so you won't disappoint the owners. All because of this "nice" atmosphere. I think you "should" take pride in your company and work to make it the GREAT company it should be.
be-400xp, I agree with you I think all of these Indy guys need to just to keep drinking the company koolaid. The sad thing is that only about 47 people at Flex have sent in cards to the union out of almost 400 pilots. Sad but true.
Management at Flex promised a long time ago that we would always get better than NJA, but apparently they have selective memory of that promise because we are treated like an inferior professional when compared to NJA pilots.
The bottom line is this, if good men do nothing to change things at Flex soon there will be nothing good to change.
