Pinnacle Airlines

[dondk]

Othello....

The way we treat new hires is immoral personally. It can be much worse than the no ID, no pay, no travel pass, no per diem and they were giving guys moving days while still in training and BEFORE they actually got to thier bases. Not withstanding some scheduling issues as well in the sim. It also at some point last year was 10-16 weeks to get through. Now our mechanics get hotel, rental car, and I do believe they get paid, the FA's get hotel but no pay, the pilots get nothing!

Upgrade times have ALWAYS been exagerated by the company and some people as well. Why our own people do it is beyond me, we have had some "lucky" people who got in at the right time and upgraded at the right time and they were here about 6 months. The 18 months is fairly accurate and I would expect it to climb slowly towards the end of the year. The problem is the most junior Captain currently is around 450 in senority. We should have about 150 or so FO's closing in on the 3000TT some time next year. I guess that is why we are taking on many GIA dudes to keep the FO ranks full. Who knows? surely not the pilot group!!!!

 

[DoinTime]

the FA's get hotel but no pay

I was told by one of our FA's that they received an 'allowance' while they were in training. Something like $200 for the two weeks. Not much but at least enough to cover most of your food needs.

Unfortunately we had very little bargaining power on our last contract. Our entire operation could have been absorbed by Mesaba in a manner or months (and it was well on its way to becoming reality with the closing of MSP and Avros moving into MEM, taking our best routes). Our decision makers decided that none of the bargaining power that we did have should be used on people that didn't even work here yet. Hence we have PFT and no compensation of any kind provided for pilots during training.

The 18 months is fairly accurate and I would expect it to climb slowly towards the end of the year.

Its always tricky when it comes to upgrades around here. The last, most junior, captain vacancy offered (about 2 months ago) went to a guy with about 26 months in. There are still about 40 FO's senior to that guy that are currently pushing 2.5-3.5 years with the company. All of the displaced captains are due to be back in their seats by March and with the info that DO let out last week it looks like they are only going to need around 75-85 additional upgrades for next year (pretty much 10/month from April onward). When they start offering upgrades again I would expect around 32-33 months is what its going to take to hold the captain seat but by the end of next year I bet it will be down to around 24-25 months. I think the days of the quick upgrade are long, long gone and the ones fortunate enough to get the quick upgrade are doomed to serve a lifetime of reserve duty.

My opinion anyway.

 

[cl-65link]

Memphis is like Detroit, without the snow. If you are thinking of moving there permanently, the further you live from the airport, the better off you'll be, especially since the city keeps annexing "surburbs" like Cordova and Bartlett. It's no wonder, over 60% of the Fedex pilots that are based there commute.

 

[NDPILOT]

I feel for the people who will get class dates next spring or summer. The bang for the buck will not be there.

Dondk -

What did you mean by that?

thanks

nd

 

[KingAirer]

THe best thing about Memphis is... I-40 Eastbound...Its a dump.

 

[cornbread]

Now our mechanics get hotel, rental car, and I do believe they get paid, the FA's get hotel but no pay, the pilots get nothing!

I know I am probably preaching to the chior, but they show no respect to your new-hires. The kicker is the ID. "You're good enough to be an employee here but we just can't justify the high cost of an ID at this point." OUCH. That is no team I would want to be on for ANY length of time. Again, this is towards your company, not the pilots that make it possible.

The salt to the wound (that I was unaware of) is the above quote. That really hurts.

Oh, and yes, Memphis only has two things Beale Street and a guy named Elvis.

I feel for the people who will get class dates next spring or summer. The bang for the buck will not be there.

NDPilot,
I think he is referring to the amount of seniority that will surge under you if you are on now (or soon). Which would ease the pain of two months of indentured servitude. As for those getting on the list later, the blow is not softened much if your low on the seniority list. I may be wrong in my interpretation.

 

[dondk]

NDpilot...

Cornbread hit it on the head!! Right now a guy or gal in training or near to class will still be in the 50-60% of the pilot group, after that your are in the higher 40% of seniority and looking at reserve for a long time until the jets catch up with the hiring. At some point we wil be hiring for reserves as there will not be enough jets to accomodate all of the pilots.

Cornbread...

yes it does suck that we are treated as third class employee's while in training. I have never been thrilled finding out other classes of employee's get different treatments. As it was put to me though... certain employee's are in demand and as such there will be "incentives" to obtain and retain those employee's. As for pilots, there are more than enough that they do not need an incentive. This came straight fro H.R. when I questioned the disparity and "discrimination" amongst employee's.

 

[DoinTime]

The HR department has been advertising a 1300 member strong pilot workforce for some time now. Even our own Union has stood behind this advertising. With the newest version of the IPO we are guaranteed a fleet of 95 (46 more than we have now) CRJ's to be delivered by the end of 2004. With Northwest's track record of whipsawing pilot groups I don't think we will be receiving more than the minimum until a new contract is signed (probably in late 2006). Under their current staffing guidelines these 95 aircraft would require 950 crew members. They have expressed interest (and already taken measures with the captains) in getting those guidelines down to 8.6 crew members per airplane or 817 for 95 aircraft.

With our seniority list already overstaffed to over 600 pilots the people getting on now, or in the near future will not enjoy the rapid advancement that people that got on over the past couple years because the deliveries will most likely stop before they get a chance to upgrade. We are going to have a considerable number of 3-4 year FO's before this is all behind us.