Segrave Aviation, yep the worst

[Paradoxus]

No, I am not management. And it is not erroneous, self-depreciation that I write about. It is factual observation based on several years of flying with pilots who think they are underpaid and overworked. Yet, these same pilots cannot even tell me basic limitations of the planes they fly. They argue with me about things that are clearly spelled out in bold letters in the AFM limitations section or through warnings, cautions, and notes scattered throughout. They are the sane pilots who take whatever they hear as gospel and will fight to the death about what they think is right about operating the aircraft, yet they have never bothered to think they might be wrong. When corrected, they blow you off as if you are the retard. You try to present the info to back your argument and they will not even look at it.

I am not perfect, not do I think for one second that I am always right and know everything. I am far from that. However, it has become very evident to me that I take more time than most to read, study, and understand the aircraft I fly so I can make the best informed decisions each time I fly. I feel it is my duty and my obligation to do so. Many pilots I've flown with will not extend the same courtesy and responsibility to me and their passengers.

The ones that do a good job time and again, know their aircraft, and have excellent ADM skills rarely, if ever, complain about their work conditions. I find it ironic, yet it tells a valuable story.

I could not have come up with a more irrelevant, improper, and inaccurate set of circumstantial evidence to support such a claim had I been paid to make the attempt. You've claimed a direct correlation between being able to perform professionally and acceptance of decidedly unacceptable working conditions.

In doing so, you have failed to actually prove anything to anyone, anymore than one might "prove" a given temperature on a given summer day based on a recoverable amount of discarded popsicle sticks in a given area.

Indeed, no empirical correlation actually exists. What does exist, however, is a set of preconceived, phantasmic expectations lensed through loosely-circumstantial observable phenomena. To wit, people only eat a disproportionately large amount of popsicles in littering, outdoor-dwelling mass when it is thirty-five degrees centigrade or better, or, the only pilots upset about working conditions and pay in professional aviation are "retards."

I don't know what conditions are at Airnet, starcheckdriver, but in your myopic understanding of this issue, were the legion of arguably professional aviators at NJA better described as "retards" or "monkeys" when they elected to collectively force an appropriate payscale and set of livable working conditions upon management? Is it accurate to assume, given your "observed" set of criteria that these pilots were incompetent, poorly trained, and uneducated fools for daring to complain?

Perhaps you have a broken, overly-dutiful sense of "obligation" ingrained within your psyche from an early age. You are likely the type mercilessly beaten into submission in former times to accept whatever comes your way without protest: taught that anything less than complete acceptance of what you can minimally obtain, prohibited from conceptualizing or indeed fighting for more, is categorically heretical. To advance one's condition, or to recognize improper compensation for services or payment rendered becomes the substance of weakness...of incompetence...of abject failure. Likely a remnant of the finer points of serfdom here, some cultures still maintain such a stranglehold on the concept of behavioral expectation in society. After all, nobody likes complainers, right?

Would this be a fair evaluation of your condition? Any more appropriate than yours of anyone with the audacity to even speculate that they might be getting a raw deal?

Perhaps you need to rethink the matter.

 

[acpilot]

Nothing new in this level of vile, erroneous self-deprecation; the number of times I've heard as much, virtually verbatim, are legion.

Most of the time such nonsense comes from the mouths of management types and their thralls.

I don't know your situation, starcheckdriver, so I won't bother with negative postulations about your place in the industry. You should be informed, however, with no small amount of appropriate amercement, that professional aviators are only paid appropriately for their capacity for judgement--all other matters are ancillary. Given this very salient fact, our profession is not so far removed from the demands of medical and law (this being why so often they are given for comparison).

Lensed by this essential truth, it is not difficult to see the crimes and abuses endured by the body workforce and the accompanying disparity when compared to the levels of compensation and quality of life offered by the oft-cited fields of physician and attorney.

For what it's worth, I've met as many "retard" physicians and lawyers as I have pilots--totally lacking education in anything apart from their chosen vocation. Shockingly, the most offending fools of this calibre I've known have been MBA-carrying management "monkeys."

Ultimately, it is the degraded state of our culture and its attendant values with respect to the true purpose/nature of education that is to blame for the current proliferation of "retards" populating all "educated" disciplines, aviation non-withstanding.

Relative to other professions, pilots really aren't that "smart." It is what it is.

 

[Paradoxus]

Relative to other professions, pilots really aren't that "smart." It is what it is.

Yes indeed...veritable field workers in all matter save compensation, eh?

 

[weasel_lips]

. Most pilots I've met are retards.

Well, you do work for Segrave.

 

[TransMach]

Seagrave Aviation

Yesterday Seagrave pulled a Hawker 1000 we had scheduled for a sub-charter tonight. They said they had no other airplane to offer. Word on the street (charter brokeage community) is that Seagrave lost their financial backing and those airplanes are gone.

Any word?

TransMach

 

[starcheckdriver]

Yesterday Seagrave pulled a Hawker 1000 we had scheduled for a sub-charter tonight. They said they had no other airplane to offer. Word on the street (charter brokeage community) is that Seagrave lost their financial backing and those airplanes are gone.

Any word?

TransMach

Segrave parked the Hawker 1000s and supposedly the Beechjets. The pilots flying those were subsequently laid off. I'm not sure about the financial backing rumor. Speculation is that the rumored merger with Delta Air Elite is getting close and Segrave is "trimming the fat". Everything is hearsay and rumor at this point.

 

[starcheckdriver]

I could not have come up with a more irrelevant, improper, and inaccurate set of circumstantial evidence to support such a claim had I been paid to make the attempt. You've claimed a direct correlation between being able to perform professionally and acceptance of decidedly unacceptable working conditions.

In doing so, you have failed to actually prove anything to anyone, anymore than one might "prove" a given temperature on a given summer day based on a recoverable amount of discarded popsicle sticks in a given area.

Indeed, no empirical correlation actually exists. What does exist, however, is a set of preconceived, phantasmic expectations lensed through loosely-circumstantial observable phenomena. To wit, people only eat a disproportionately large amount of popsicles in littering, outdoor-dwelling mass when it is thirty-five degrees centigrade or better, or, the only pilots upset about working conditions and pay in professional aviation are "retards."

I don't know what conditions are at Airnet, starcheckdriver, but in your myopic understanding of this issue, were the legion of arguably professional aviators at NJA better described as "retards" or "monkeys" when they elected to collectively force an appropriate payscale and set of livable working conditions upon management? Is it accurate to assume, given your "observed" set of criteria that these pilots were incompetent, poorly trained, and uneducated fools for daring to complain?

Perhaps you have a broken, overly-dutiful sense of "obligation" ingrained within your psyche from an early age. You are likely the type mercilessly beaten into submission in former times to accept whatever comes your way without protest: taught that anything less than complete acceptance of what you can minimally obtain, prohibited from conceptualizing or indeed fighting for more, is categorically heretical. To advance one's condition, or to recognize improper compensation for services or payment rendered becomes the substance of weakness...of incompetence...of abject failure. Likely a remnant of the finer points of serfdom here, some cultures still maintain such a stranglehold on the concept of behavioral expectation in society. After all, nobody likes complainers, right?

Would this be a fair evaluation of your condition? Any more appropriate than yours of anyone with the audacity to even speculate that they might be getting a raw deal?

Perhaps you need to rethink the matter.

I respect your arugments, however, you could at least extend to me the courtesy of reading and understanding my posts in their entirety prior to disputing my claims and opinions. You have failed to do so.

Appropriate payscales and working conditions is a matter of opinion and hughky subjective. There is not really objective data to support one's opinion of such things. One could argue "industry standard", but again, that is highly subjective. I do not consider NJA pilots retards for coming together with their demands. I know a few NJA pilots and I have found them to be quite professional. In addition, I find NJA to be a professional operation.

It is fact, not opinion or myopic understanding, that pilots are generally not very well educated. Instead, they are trained like any other "trade worker". They are trained to complete a specific task each day they go to work: fly the aircraft from point A to B with a very specific set of procedures. Furthermore, they are trained to handle any abnormal or emergency situation per a set of very specific procedures. There is little latitude for one to deviate from such procedures.

The problem lies with ADM skills. Pilots are routinely faced with decisions that do not fall within the set of procedures mentioned above. A large majority of the pilots I have flown with have demonstrated extremely poor ADM skills. They are very good at the "specific procedures", but cannot make a good decision if there is not a procedure to assist them. These are the pilots I have categorized as retards. Unfortunately, experience has proven that more of them exist than the professional aviators you speak of.

I was not raised and it was not beat into me to always accept my situation for what it is. If that was the case, I would still be a flight instructor making $12,000 a year because that is where I started. I do, however, detest people who think flying an aircraft 6 months out of the year for $85,000 is slave labor. Working 6 months out of the year, being able to pay your bills, having significant time off, is a cake job. Most professionals outside of aviation would agree with this.

I further detest pilots who constantly complain, yet make no effort to find a different career. No one is holding these pilots by the balls and forcing them to remain in aviation. This industry is not perfect by any means. It has good things and bad things. There are reputable operators and there are crappy operators. Pilots should do themselves a favor and do their research before taking a job.

 

[Paradoxus]

Alright. I'm largely hard pressed to dispute most of what you have said, except for:

I further detest pilots who constantly complain, yet make no effort to find a different career. No one is holding these pilots by the balls and forcing them to remain in aviation. This industry is not perfect by any means. It has good things and bad things. There are reputable operators and there are crappy operators. Pilots should do themselves a favor and do their research before taking a job.

Epic over-simplification. Here's why:

By your evaluation, shut up or get out, eh? I suppose the monumental expense and dedication of training for such a career is better considered a negligible detail, right? One is better served to accept wholly unacceptable working conditions (even if they suddenly appear where they did not before) or start looking at a way to leave the vocation they've essentially dedicated their lives to in the dust, you've essentially maintained. Not only is this "put up with it or get out" philosophy vastly impractical, it is deeply offensive to anyone who has been genuinely hosed by an employer.

Your comments about NJA are prodigiously at odds with your stated position. The gains made by the pilot group began with grievences about conditions and pay that were legendary in infamy. "Research" about conditions at NJA made by a future newhire ten years ago would have suggested as much--all was made known far and wide by "complainers."

Given that you've already had nothing but complete and utter approbation for the NJA pilot group and their professionalism in the last post, I find myself confused. These people had complaints, common complaints quite endemic to most of the industry--a majority would agree, and took a formal stance against unacceptable working conditions as professionals.

Perhaps you could alleviate my confusion and explain:

I do not consider NJA pilots retards for coming together with their demands. I know a few NJA pilots and I have found them to be quite professional. In addition, I find NJA to be a professional operation.

How are they exempt?

For your further consideration:

It is factual observation based on several years of flying with pilots who think they are underpaid and overworked. Yet, these same pilots cannot even tell me basic limitations of the planes they fly.

You are certainly entitled to your opinion about observed phenomena. My contention, however, is that you're dead wrong about any such empirical connection being reasonably prevalent. I contend, that to see any such correlation--indeed, to see anything but a limited set of circumstantial factors lensed via one man's set of preconcieved (and incorrect) notions governing the connection between competance and justification for complaint is an unfair absurdity.

The beauty of the NJA model is that it completely invalidates this position and proves that tenored professionals, indeed a great many of them, do have total justification for grievances about pay and working conditions.

 

[PiratePilot]

October 6th, 2009

Greetings Brothers and Sisters

This week has seen a great deal of activity for both companies - activity that
management has not acknowledged nor sent any communication out on. Rest
assured we listen and want to openly communicate what we know.

A great deal of you have taken that stand and signed up for the Pilots Forum.
Many have sent in their cards. Thank you. We need to get the word out to all the
pilots. Please pass this along, talk with your fellow pilots and get them to join the
web board and/or mail in their cards. We need to have a unified voice to secure a
better future for ourselves and families.

We want to send our sincerest regrets to the remainder of the PEA pilots who
were furloughed this past week. From what we can gather the last of the Beechjets
and Hawkers were parked and/or moved to be disposed. The company once again
has not given any notice or communication to the pilots and their families. We
have heard that a group of effected pilots are pursuing legal action through the
WARN Act (Requiring a 60 day notice before mass furloughing). We have passed
this information up to Teamsters management to see if they can offer any advice
or assistance for those effected. We can’t promise any thing at this point (since
we do not have a union voted in yet) but we want you to know that we are trying
to help our effected fellow aviators.

We also have received information that Mr. Segrave is communicating with at least
one former pilot and a stuffed animal who have posted their concerns on
Facebook yet he won’t address the entire pilot group. It appears your efforts have
gotten his and management’s attention. Lets keep the pressure on. Send in those
authorization cards! If you have gotten communications that you would like
posted on the web board please forward them to [email protected]
for review and inclusion on the web board.

There are two other issues we need to bring to your attention. First, we have
heard a SAI Hawker 800 Captain was terminated last week for what we understand
as voicing his opinion. Management got upset and let him go. This is yet another
instance where having a unified voice with a union will stop these “off the cuff”
terminations by management.

Second, we have learned there is one former PEA pilot still standing. Mr.
Ringelstein began Lear 60 Initial today for SAI. PEA pilots were told there were no
training funds yet they can find money to reward Mr. Ringelstein for walking all
over the PEA pilots backs. We wish Mr. Ringelstein all the best during his training
- training at our brothers and sisters expense. The current Lear 60 fleet lead
captain better check 6 because you are probably his next target. We hope the
company wont begin laying off fellow SAI pilots as their training expires to hire
pre-qualified “street pilots”.

In closing, please help us get the word out to all SAI and PEA pilots to join the
forum and mail in those Authorization Cards.

Sincerely,

Your Brothers and Sisters in Unity,

The Organization Committee of SAI and PEA Pilots


Helpful Links:

Pilot Web Board Information forum Address:

http://forum4.ibt1108.org/

Authorization Card:
http://www.ibt1108.org/Docs/Pilot_Authorization_Card.pdf


IBT 1108 Address:

www.ibt1108.org

 

[cscflystraight]

I was one of the original LR60 drivers to come to SAI and whoever on here mentioned to beware when recurrent came due is correct ... I just got a phone call today ... 'effective immediately, your service are no longer required' He says I cost them too much in maintenance cost; and I was scheduled to go to recurrent this week but it got pushed back til next ....welllll looks like I won't be going ...... what timing