Penair and ERA pay/sched/hiring status?

[airspeedsalive]

Anyone have any info on any of the above?

 

[US Flyer]

I worked for Penair for about a year flying a Metro in 1999-2000. They were a good operation- in my opinion the best company to fly for in Alaska (not counting Alaska Air that flies bigger jets). Many of their pilots get their turbine PIC time quickly and then move on to Alaska Airlines after a stint at Pen-Air. The pay was around $1600 a month (back then) but the training and flightime were first class. Upgrade at the time was around 18 months if you had the total time they needed.

For a small company they have a very safety minded attitude and are extremely professional- much more so than the management of my company now that has 1700 pilots. They will pay around 3000/mo (I think) if you are willing to go fly smaller planes in the bush communities (Piper, Caravan, Etc.). The worst mistake (so far) of my aviation career was leaving Pen-Air- if I had stayed and built up my PIC turbine time quickly, I would probably be working for Alaska by now instead of a 70 seat CRJ FO for the last 4 years.

I left Penair to go to a supposed PIC position and got SCREWED by ERA. (From what I have been told this is a common occurence) They had a groundschool for twenty pilots and then close to the end of the three weeks the director of flight ops (a real winner-total redneck) came in an told us that they only needed eight pilots instead of twenty, and that they were taking their ERA ramp guys/fuelers (many that had only 200 hours) over many of us with 3000+ hours that quit our jobs to go work there.

Friends and former employees of ERA have told me that this happened all the time but I had not lived in Alaska long enough to know that at the time. I have a friend who has worked at ERA for eight years now that took seven years to upgrade to PIC- I'm not sure if that is normal for ERA or not, but many people in ANC will tell you to stay far away from any of the unprofessional BS that goes on at ERA. They are also very fond of giving you a "pilot job" which means you are an aircraft fueler for 6-18 months until they need pilots again- no fun when its -10 degrees outside in the winter.

Obviously this is all my personal viewpoint, but having lived in ANC for four years (and then moving away after I burned the frist bridge and had no job). I would HIGHLY recommend Pen-Air as a first class operator and tell you to stay far, far away from ERA.

Enjoy the scenery up there- its the most beautiful place in the world and theres not a day yet that I am flying around the lower 48 that I don't think about and miss Alaska.

 

[US Flyer]

Sorry for the additional post- I believe I had a schedule of around 2 days off a week, and we had around 16 FOs and 15 Captains at the time. You'll fly 90-100 hours a month. The weather in ANC is pretty mild in the winter compared with other much colder places like Fairbanks, where its often 60 or 70 degrees colder a few hundred miles away.

They do not like to hire you unless you are actually up there in Alaska, so the common response to any pilot inquiry is "get up to Alaska, and then bring us a resume and we'll talk" . The Chief Pilot at the time (probably still is) was a nice guy by the name of Bryan Carricaburu). If I could financially afford to go back to Pen-Air, I would just to be living there again.

Best of luck. Hope this helps!

 

[ILStoMinimums]

I worked for Penair for about a year flying a Metro in 1999-2000. They were a good operation- in my opinion the best company to fly for in Alaska (not counting Alaska Air that flies bigger jets). Many of their pilots get their turbine PIC time quickly and then move on to Alaska Airlines after a stint at Pen-Air. The pay was around $1600 a month (back then) but the training and flightime were first class. Upgrade at the time was around 18 months if you had the total time they needed.

For a small company they have a very safety minded attitude and are extremely professional- much more so than the management of my company now that has 1700 pilots. They will pay around 3000/mo (I think) if you are willing to go fly smaller planes in the bush communities (Piper, Caravan, Etc.). The worst mistake (so far) of my aviation career was leaving Pen-Air- if I had stayed and built up my PIC turbine time quickly, I would probably be working for Alaska by now instead of a 70 seat CRJ FO for the last 4 years.

I left Penair to go to a supposed PIC position and got SCREWED by ERA. (From what I have been told this is a common occurence) They had a groundschool for twenty pilots and then close to the end of the three weeks the director of flight ops (a real winner-total redneck) came in an told us that they only needed eight pilots instead of twenty, and that they were taking their ERA ramp guys/fuelers (many that had only 200 hours) over many of us with 3000+ hours that quit our jobs to go work there.

Friends and former employees of ERA have told me that this happened all the time but I had not lived in Alaska long enough to know that at the time. I have a friend who has worked at ERA for eight years now that took seven years to upgrade to PIC- I'm not sure if that is normal for ERA or not, but many people in ANC will tell you to stay far away from any of the unprofessional BS that goes on at ERA. They are also very fond of giving you a "pilot job" which means you are an aircraft fueler for 6-18 months until they need pilots again- no fun when its -10 degrees outside in the winter.

Obviously this is all my personal viewpoint, but having lived in ANC for four years (and then moving away after I burned the frist bridge and had no job). I would HIGHLY recommend Pen-Air as a first class operator and tell you to stay far, far away from ERA.

Enjoy the scenery up there- its the most beautiful place in the world and theres not a day yet that I am flying around the lower 48 that I don't think about and miss Alaska.

I believe PenAir is running around 3 years to Metro Captain. I hear its a good place. I wouldn't say the schedule is the best, they tend to stick to the 4 on 3 off basis in ANC.

Sorry that you had an unfortunate experience at Era, it has changed quite a bit recently. They still do hire off the ramp for the most part and occassionally hire pilots with LOR's. I sure wouldn't consider Era the way you phrased above, it may have its ups and downs, just like everybody else, but it's not a bit worse or better than PenAir.

PenAir's GS's are identical to Era's, last October they had around 20 in GS and put under 10 on flying once complete. I've got friends over at PenAir and they say it can take a while to actually get a window seat after GS if you didn't do exceptionally well.

However, Era does tend to 3-4 more through GS than what the actual need for staffing is at the time. I went through GS in the June along with 5 other new hires and 3 upgrading Dash 8 FO's along with the CP who is transitioning back to the Otter for the time being. Out of the 6 newhires, 4 of us are currently on-line with the other 2 coming online shortly. I was fortunate to go directly into the -6 without any delay from GS. They told us all on the 1st day of GS that they will judge us 6 by our skills, motivation and apptitude in class. I'd surely do things different if I was in charge, but thats how they select flight trainees currently.
Back in the day they used company senioirty and I think thats the way it should be. For the guys that got hired off the street I can see the conflict, but the guys putting there time in on the ramp should have priority over someone hired outside the company imo.
Upgrade time at Era is definately coming down, but its been as long as 7 years which is a LONG time in the right seat!

If you want to get a job at Era, you pretty much have to get a job working in a different department and then apply for a flying slot when one comes open. Hopefully everybody will hear something solid about the company sale soon, it could be the best thing that ever happened at Era. Could mean growth and more newer airframes.

 

[airspeedsalive]

Thanks for all the good info guys!

 

[ILStoMinimums]

Thanks for all the good info guys!

ANy luck with your Alaska job search?

 

[Hardknock]

Era blows. This guy is probably one of the low timers that slung bags on the ramp to get hired. No one else was going to hire him with 300TT without slinging bags first. No wonder he loves era so damm much. Taking 20 guys and putting them in class and having them all think they have a job and to come in at the end and say, oops! We only need 8 of you and the other 12 are just $hit out of luck. That's a crock of $hit. What a way to treat people. They quit their jobs now they're out on the street becsaue era can't plan ahead and they treat people like meat just so they assure themselves that they have pilots on the line when they need them. And this taking a 300 hour guy over a 3000 hour guy just becasue he has 6 months of bag slinging time is bull$hit. I'm surprised nobody has put one in cook inlet yet. Penair is just as bad. They make you fly in dilly before you can even dream of flying the metro in ANC. FOr a mere $12 bucks an hour to boot. The "regionals" in ANC are run by a bunch of mismanaging good-ol-boy networks. If you're not drinking buddies at F-street with one of them, forget it.

No, I never worked at either. I've just been in ANC long enough to know the real story behind these outfits. Stay away.

 

[ILStoMinimums]

Era blows. This guy is probably one of the low timers that slung bags on the ramp to get hired. No one else was going to hire him with 300TT without slinging bags first. No wonder he loves era so damm much. Taking 20 guys and putting them in class and having them all think they have a job and to come in at the end and say, oops! We only need 8 of you and the other 12 are just $hit out of luck. That's a crock of $hit. What a way to treat people. They quit their jobs now they're out on the street becsaue era can't plan ahead and they treat people like meat just so they assure themselves that they have pilots on the line when they need them. And this taking a 300 hour guy over a 3000 hour guy just becasue he has 6 months of bag slinging time is bull$hit. I'm surprised nobody has put one in cook inlet yet. Penair is just as bad. They make you fly in dilly before you can even dream of flying the metro in ANC. FOr a mere $12 bucks an hour to boot. The "regionals" in ANC are run by a bunch of mismanaging good-ol-boy networks. If you're not drinking buddies at F-street with one of them, forget it.

No, I never worked at either. I've just been in ANC long enough to know the real story behind these outfits. Stay away.

It's a lot easier to talk about a company when you haven't worked at Era or PenAir. It's amazing how some individuals know so much. Era has always honored its current employees when it comes to moving up to a different position including flying. Take any other regional who has internal applicant, if they got the mins and the company likes them they will most likely get the job.

 

[psysicx]

What about Alaska Central Express?