Pinnacle Hiring

[blesko]

yeah, they told us class dates were 12/12 and 1/3.....for what its worth.

 

[av8er23]

whats he doing applying to Pinnacle? I hope he isnt coming here looking for a fast upgrade

I talked to a guy in the hotel van the other day that upgraded to capt. in 20 months. I think lots of people on this board are full if s**t.

 

[dondk]

I talked to a guy in the hotel van the other day that upgraded to capt. in 20 months. I think lots of people on this board are full if s**t.

Well, lets set the record straight on Pinnacle upgrades.

Once upon a time in '02-'04 (and some in '05), Pinnacle hired many GIA and other guys with fairly low TT. Once some of these 300 or so pilots approached the required 3000TT the company changed the playing field and came up with a 250 PIC restriction. Thus closing the door on many senior FO's who were short of the PIC but had the TT. The company then bypassed most of these pilots and needed to hire street Captains until the last jet hit the property.

During this process, the upgrades went very junior, some new hires last September were being offered upgrade while in initial, most others were able to get upgrade when they had about a year on the property or less. Thus many other well qualified pilots came to Pinnacle in the hopes of a quick upgrade.

Then the last jet hit the property, the music slowed. The company with the POI suddenly changed their minds and allowed those well qualified but less than 250 PIC FO's the opportunity to upgrade. Now... about 200 of the GIA are eligible plus the other 200 or so already well qualified also have the time to upgrade.

To end this story... of the 1100 or so pilots on the property presently, maybe 200 do not have the TT to upgrade. We have about 560 Captains and about 400 FO's who meet or exceed the upgrade requirements.

Unless we suddendly get another 40 or more jets, it is safe to say it can be years for a person hired today to upgrade. Our CA attrition rate averages about 5 per month.

The vacancy that was published yesterday is for 10 CA's and this is the first upgrade vacancy in several months. The schoolhouse can do about 25 upgrades a month, the most it ever did was 32 I believe, but many of those washed out. It normally does 16 per month. It still carrys a 20% washout factor as well. I think the most upgrades it had in 1 year was 170 and that was in '04

 

[baseal]

I thought the 250 PIC was a FAA rule, not company. Could be mistaken-

 

[suupah]

I hear pinnacle is hiring really heavy. Are they stocking up on pilots for something? What is the upgrade there?

 

[Junkflyer]

My friend (2500tt etc.) has been out of work for a while and needs jet time anyway so he accepted the interview/job. He also has an Expressjet interview coming up and will see what they're about if he can time it right.

 

[PCL_128]

I thought the 250 PIC was a FAA rule, not company. Could be mistaken-

The FAA allows pilots to count half of their SIC time towards the 250 PIC required.

 

[psycho]

Don't come to pinnacle unless you are a furloughed pilot looking to regain currency for a better job, then you can wash the vaseline out of your butt and move on to a company that cares about employees. We have perfected the art of treating our pilots like crap. I have been a pilot for 4 companies, worked for 15 yrs before being a pilot. I am astounded at the stupidity factor here. Run as fast as you can.