Options_SLAVE
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jul 20, 2007
- Posts
- 192
If you are a pilot looking at working at the fractionals, you might want to know what life is like for a Flight OPtions pilot before even applying there. This is what you will get as a new-hire at flight options, so now you will know what you will be getting yourself into:
1) You must work a flex schedule. The flex schedule has NOT been put in our company SOP's, and the last pilots hired at Options (over 2 years ago) were lied to as to what the flex schedule would be. Some were also told they'd get a salary bump for being on the flex schedule. That was also a lie.
The company hasn't put the flex schedule in the SOP so that they can make it whatever they want it to be. You will essentially be living on a beeper (Blackberry), but what seems to be the norm now is an 8 on, 3 off, 7 on schedule. (Yeeeeeeeee ha!) If a recruiter discounts that, tell the recruiter you want it in writing and guaranteed what your schedule will be. Except perhaps the last 75 pilots or so on our seniority list, we all have an 8 day on, 7 day off schedule. Those last pilots on the seniority list are pilots on the flex schedule, and they work a 8-3-7. Fair, huh? I would strongly talk to one of these unfortunate pilots living the hell of the Flight Options flex schedule before accepting an offer of employment. They live a totally different life than the rest of us, and our life sucks. Theirs, as I said, is hell.
2) You will be the lowest-paid fractional Jet pilots in the industry, with no hope of upgrade in the foresee-able future. Our most junior pilot has over 2 years in the company and unfortunately he will probably be a first officer for at least another 5 years. There has been zero upgrades in the beechjet, the smallest aircraft we operate, in I would say at least 18 months, and then only another 1 or 2 pilots upgraded the previous year. As with most fractionals, our pay scale was not set up with long-term first officers in mind. A first year First Officer makes $34k/year (flex pilots were told they'd get $35, that never happened.) 5-year first officer makes around $50k (Net Jets 5 year is WAY above that). Also, the other major fractionals all have a 7 day on, 7 day off schedule. We do 8 on, 7 off. We work 30 days more per year than the other fractional pilots, and get paid less money.
We also have the most ridiculous payscale in aviation, where if you upgrade to a new seat, regardless of where, you go back to "year 1 pay". So, if you are a beechjet FO for 5 years and upgrade to Captain, you will be a "1st year captain" on pay. If you upgrade to a higher paying seat, your pay is "Frozen" until your pay catches up to the new seat you are in, which could take YEARS. If you stay here 20 years and upgrade in all 8 seats on all 4 aircraft we currently have, you will have lost 8 years of pay you should be getting. So at your 20th year you would be a 12th year captain on the legacy. This is the only company in the world we know of that penalizes you for having the seniority to upgrade.
3) You will only make $34k your first year, plus per diem that they take away if they keep you on home standby (a term you will see a lot on the flex schedule, taking several hundred dollars per month out of our pilot's pay) and you will pay the most expensive health care premiums anyone of us have ever seen. Our company saw fit to more than double our health care premiums this year. We are self-insured and companies with the same insurance provider (United Healthcare) with just a few dozen employees somehow have better health care premiums than our multi-thousand employee company. (At Net Jets, the company pays 100% of health care premiums, so not only would you start out making $5k/year more there, but you'd also be making an additional $300+ per month than you would at options because of our health care costs)
4) Our pilots were treated so horribly that the company forced our pilots to unionize in March of 2006. An incredible 67% of the 800+ pilots on the seniority list voted for the Teamsters 1108 to represent them. Since then the company and the pilot group has been in contract negotiations, but with no contract yet, the company has decided to try to stretch the legal limits of what they can do to our pilot group by doing the following things:
Changing our per diem
Changing our crew meal policies - when we get them, and the quality of the food is pathetic and embarrasing - often a crew will just give the unedible food to the FBO rampers, who throw it away and won't eat it either.
Removing deserts from crew meals.
Changing our domiciles allowed where we can live or fly out of.
Changing our health care premiums.
Forcing our pilots to show up and sit at an FBO with no airplane or trips assigned, and rot there for 14 hours.
Changing our low circadium rhythm times.
Harrassing pilots for writing up discrepancies they find.
Firing pilots for ridiculous and unreasonable reasons.
Making pilots work 14-hr days and minimal, 10 hours of rest "just because".
Downgrade in the quality of Hotels we stay at.
5) Our company makes it a habit to lie to the pilot group. For example, our pilots were promised repeatedly, IN WRITING, that we would get a raise in January of '06 by upper management. Then we voted in the union, and that miraculously went away. (Note: It is against the RLA to try to promise employees things to make them vote against a union - go figure)
6) Shrinkage. Every major fractional in the U.S. is growing - except Flight Options. In the past 18 months our pilot group has dropped over 40%. This was by design from our company, and was made possible by stripping our quality of life and forcing our pilots to want to leave to go somewhere else, so the company could save the face and embarrassment (translation: Lost sales) that would happen if they were forced to lay off pilots. We have lost over 100 airframes in the past 2 years. It does not take a rocket surgeon to figure out what that means for your upgrade potential at Flight Options. If you want the next 6,000+ hours of your log book to be in the SIC column, then Flight Options is the place for you!
7) Maintenance. Maintenance at Flight Options is a joke. The company gets the FAA's "diamond award" but no one on the pilot seniority list can figure out how. That just makes us realize how worthless the "diamond award' is. That's all I will say on this open forum about maintenance. Let's just say the FAA is very interested in what's going on with Flight Options' maintenance these days.
8) Aircraft. We fly the oldest aircraft in the industry, and you can tell. Our aircraft look like freighters. You can see every rivet on the airframe, the underbelly is alluminum in color, and our interiors look like a GA piston-only airport's FBO crew car - you know, the ones that barely start, the doors don't close all the way, the AC and radio don't work and the windows don't roll down, those kinds of interiors. We have 3 different kinds of paint jobs and none of them are well maintained.
9) Hotels. Our company finds the cheapest hotels around, and safety is NOT their first concern. We have had pilots assaulted outside of the hotels, stay at hotels with bullet holes in the windows and prostitutes hanging around outside. They put us in hotels that are out in the middle of no where, no rental car, no where to eat, and maximize the FAR's and count up to 30 minutes of traveling as "local in nature", so when you only get 10 hours of rest, you spend 1 hour of it driving, and oh yea, you also should get dinner and breakfast in that 10 hours, and then be rested for another 14 hour day. Pilots have no say in their hotels. Even when we can find a better hotel for a cheaper price, they will force us to stay at the bad one as a matter of policy.
10) Crew meals. Like Tofu sandwiches? How about Vegetarian Lasagna (Spinach)? Salads that are in a cup the size most places give you for the salad dressing. (Dressing? Forget it half the time). 90% of the time it will be 2 sandwiches for the crew, one ham, one turkey, and usually no condoments included, so you have to eat it dry, no mayo, etc. The company has established time "windows" that you MUST fly through in order to get catered food. Unlike netjets, who have a menu their pilots can order food from, our pilots have absolutely no say in what is in a crew meal, our company controls that. Many of our pilots get their catering, find it unacceptable, and end up having to delay a flight to go buy food they can eat.
Options_SLAVE - Breaking the shackles!
1) You must work a flex schedule. The flex schedule has NOT been put in our company SOP's, and the last pilots hired at Options (over 2 years ago) were lied to as to what the flex schedule would be. Some were also told they'd get a salary bump for being on the flex schedule. That was also a lie.
The company hasn't put the flex schedule in the SOP so that they can make it whatever they want it to be. You will essentially be living on a beeper (Blackberry), but what seems to be the norm now is an 8 on, 3 off, 7 on schedule. (Yeeeeeeeee ha!) If a recruiter discounts that, tell the recruiter you want it in writing and guaranteed what your schedule will be. Except perhaps the last 75 pilots or so on our seniority list, we all have an 8 day on, 7 day off schedule. Those last pilots on the seniority list are pilots on the flex schedule, and they work a 8-3-7. Fair, huh? I would strongly talk to one of these unfortunate pilots living the hell of the Flight Options flex schedule before accepting an offer of employment. They live a totally different life than the rest of us, and our life sucks. Theirs, as I said, is hell.
2) You will be the lowest-paid fractional Jet pilots in the industry, with no hope of upgrade in the foresee-able future. Our most junior pilot has over 2 years in the company and unfortunately he will probably be a first officer for at least another 5 years. There has been zero upgrades in the beechjet, the smallest aircraft we operate, in I would say at least 18 months, and then only another 1 or 2 pilots upgraded the previous year. As with most fractionals, our pay scale was not set up with long-term first officers in mind. A first year First Officer makes $34k/year (flex pilots were told they'd get $35, that never happened.) 5-year first officer makes around $50k (Net Jets 5 year is WAY above that). Also, the other major fractionals all have a 7 day on, 7 day off schedule. We do 8 on, 7 off. We work 30 days more per year than the other fractional pilots, and get paid less money.
We also have the most ridiculous payscale in aviation, where if you upgrade to a new seat, regardless of where, you go back to "year 1 pay". So, if you are a beechjet FO for 5 years and upgrade to Captain, you will be a "1st year captain" on pay. If you upgrade to a higher paying seat, your pay is "Frozen" until your pay catches up to the new seat you are in, which could take YEARS. If you stay here 20 years and upgrade in all 8 seats on all 4 aircraft we currently have, you will have lost 8 years of pay you should be getting. So at your 20th year you would be a 12th year captain on the legacy. This is the only company in the world we know of that penalizes you for having the seniority to upgrade.
3) You will only make $34k your first year, plus per diem that they take away if they keep you on home standby (a term you will see a lot on the flex schedule, taking several hundred dollars per month out of our pilot's pay) and you will pay the most expensive health care premiums anyone of us have ever seen. Our company saw fit to more than double our health care premiums this year. We are self-insured and companies with the same insurance provider (United Healthcare) with just a few dozen employees somehow have better health care premiums than our multi-thousand employee company. (At Net Jets, the company pays 100% of health care premiums, so not only would you start out making $5k/year more there, but you'd also be making an additional $300+ per month than you would at options because of our health care costs)
4) Our pilots were treated so horribly that the company forced our pilots to unionize in March of 2006. An incredible 67% of the 800+ pilots on the seniority list voted for the Teamsters 1108 to represent them. Since then the company and the pilot group has been in contract negotiations, but with no contract yet, the company has decided to try to stretch the legal limits of what they can do to our pilot group by doing the following things:
Changing our per diem
Changing our crew meal policies - when we get them, and the quality of the food is pathetic and embarrasing - often a crew will just give the unedible food to the FBO rampers, who throw it away and won't eat it either.
Removing deserts from crew meals.
Changing our domiciles allowed where we can live or fly out of.
Changing our health care premiums.
Forcing our pilots to show up and sit at an FBO with no airplane or trips assigned, and rot there for 14 hours.
Changing our low circadium rhythm times.
Harrassing pilots for writing up discrepancies they find.
Firing pilots for ridiculous and unreasonable reasons.
Making pilots work 14-hr days and minimal, 10 hours of rest "just because".
Downgrade in the quality of Hotels we stay at.
5) Our company makes it a habit to lie to the pilot group. For example, our pilots were promised repeatedly, IN WRITING, that we would get a raise in January of '06 by upper management. Then we voted in the union, and that miraculously went away. (Note: It is against the RLA to try to promise employees things to make them vote against a union - go figure)
6) Shrinkage. Every major fractional in the U.S. is growing - except Flight Options. In the past 18 months our pilot group has dropped over 40%. This was by design from our company, and was made possible by stripping our quality of life and forcing our pilots to want to leave to go somewhere else, so the company could save the face and embarrassment (translation: Lost sales) that would happen if they were forced to lay off pilots. We have lost over 100 airframes in the past 2 years. It does not take a rocket surgeon to figure out what that means for your upgrade potential at Flight Options. If you want the next 6,000+ hours of your log book to be in the SIC column, then Flight Options is the place for you!
7) Maintenance. Maintenance at Flight Options is a joke. The company gets the FAA's "diamond award" but no one on the pilot seniority list can figure out how. That just makes us realize how worthless the "diamond award' is. That's all I will say on this open forum about maintenance. Let's just say the FAA is very interested in what's going on with Flight Options' maintenance these days.
8) Aircraft. We fly the oldest aircraft in the industry, and you can tell. Our aircraft look like freighters. You can see every rivet on the airframe, the underbelly is alluminum in color, and our interiors look like a GA piston-only airport's FBO crew car - you know, the ones that barely start, the doors don't close all the way, the AC and radio don't work and the windows don't roll down, those kinds of interiors. We have 3 different kinds of paint jobs and none of them are well maintained.
9) Hotels. Our company finds the cheapest hotels around, and safety is NOT their first concern. We have had pilots assaulted outside of the hotels, stay at hotels with bullet holes in the windows and prostitutes hanging around outside. They put us in hotels that are out in the middle of no where, no rental car, no where to eat, and maximize the FAR's and count up to 30 minutes of traveling as "local in nature", so when you only get 10 hours of rest, you spend 1 hour of it driving, and oh yea, you also should get dinner and breakfast in that 10 hours, and then be rested for another 14 hour day. Pilots have no say in their hotels. Even when we can find a better hotel for a cheaper price, they will force us to stay at the bad one as a matter of policy.
10) Crew meals. Like Tofu sandwiches? How about Vegetarian Lasagna (Spinach)? Salads that are in a cup the size most places give you for the salad dressing. (Dressing? Forget it half the time). 90% of the time it will be 2 sandwiches for the crew, one ham, one turkey, and usually no condoments included, so you have to eat it dry, no mayo, etc. The company has established time "windows" that you MUST fly through in order to get catered food. Unlike netjets, who have a menu their pilots can order food from, our pilots have absolutely no say in what is in a crew meal, our company controls that. Many of our pilots get their catering, find it unacceptable, and end up having to delay a flight to go buy food they can eat.
Options_SLAVE - Breaking the shackles!
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