Thinking of Netjets and ..........

[Ladi]

Question from a Flight Attendant.....

At NJ when you are on your 7 days, are you w/ the same F/A (if you fly a large cabin a/c) or does it change? And during those 7 days do you ever have a nite back at home? ie, in that evening and back out in the morning? Or are all the overnites always away?

I am asking because I see they are accepting resumes for Flight Attendants and I am sending mine in.

Thanks!

ladi

 

[Willy21]

I think the domicile issue has more to do with keeping current sic's on property. If we keep bringing people in to replace people that are already here then we are not growing. With a net of 60 airplanes in '08 we need the number of pilots to get over 3000. When I interviewed last summer they were saying the goal was to be at or close to that number by the first quarter '08. Last I checked we are still about 2700 or so.

 

[jtf]

NetJets will hopefully be my last job. I looked long and hard and decided the relative stability, variety of flying, and reasonable pay were worth the trade off of possibly better money and schedules, but also the constant threat of furlough, bankruptcy, and mergers at the airlines. I took a pay hit from my former captain position to come here, but even as an FO I am fairly close when you count the benefits that I didn't have or would have had to pay a lot for at my previous job. I'll blow it away once I upgrade. Express Jet may be one of the better regionals out there, but regionals just are not a stable place to be with the legacies whipsawing their regional partners even when things are going well for them.

Another thing to think about is that there is nothing that says you can't go back to the airlines if the fractionals don't work for you. There have been some pilots who have left NJA for Fedex, UPS, Southwest, and Continental, but very few since the job here is such a good one since the contract of 2005.

 

[atpcliff]

Hi!

I believe when the pilots start their 7 day tours, they are gone for 7 days and are airlined back home/to base at the end. I would assume it's the same for flt attendents.

cliff
YIP

 

[fischman]

Question from a Flight Attendant.....

At NJ when you are on your 7 days, are you w/ the same F/A (if you fly a large cabin a/c) or does it change? And during those 7 days do you ever have a nite back at home? ie, in that evening and back out in the morning? Or are all the overnites always away?

I am asking because I see they are accepting resumes for Flight Attendants and I am sending mine in.

Thanks!

ladi

Ladi,

As far as I know they are not accepting applications for NJA, but I think they are at NJI. You are usually paired with the same crew all week. You may overnight at home, but you never know. In my 3 years at NJA, I have had 3 overnights in my base. If you overnight at your base, you have the option to go home or get a hotel.

 

[Guitar Guy]

I believe when the pilots start their 7 day tours, they are gone for 7 days and are airlined back home/to base at the end. I would assume it's the same for flt attendents.

It's certainly possible to have an overnight at home on occasion. It depends on luck of the draw, so to speak, but I do get some overnights. And some crewmembers even get "show at home" assignments, so that can also produce a few extra nights off the road.

 

[stingray]

I've been at NJA just over 6yrs, I belive it is one of the better jobs around.
If you are even thinking about NJA, Put your resume in now, by the time you send a resume in and get your application filled out and sent back and then sceduled for an interview can be months, so do it now.
You don't have to make the decision to leave your current job for NJA immediately, but at least get the process started so you have the ability to make the choice.

 

[doylehargraves]

What it boils down to is this. Answer these questions for yourself:

Do you want to be called at 3am in the morning for trips?
Do you want to be gone for more than 6 days at a time?
Do you want to load luggage and clean airplanes all day?
Do you want your plans for the day to be changed 4 times before you leave the hotel or possibly in route?
Do you want to eat crew food the rest of your life?

In my opinion. If I were you, I would stay at XJT. All you guys do is show up to the cockpit and go. No sweating in the heat of the summer loading bags and cleaning the airplane etc... If I had that kind of seniority, I wouldn't leave. If you can't survive on $80k a year, your problems aren't where you work.

 

[hammer2]

What it boils down to is this. Answer these questions for yourself:

Do you want to be called at 3am in the morning for trips?
Do you want to be gone for more than 6 days at a time?
Do you want to load luggage and clean airplanes all day?
Do you want your plans for the day to be changed 4 times before you leave the hotel or possibly in route?
Do you want to eat crew food the rest of your life?

In my opinion. If I were you, I would stay at XJT. All you guys do is show up to the cockpit and go. No sweating in the heat of the summer loading bags and cleaning the airplane etc... If I had that kind of seniority, I wouldn't leave. If you can't survive on $80k a year, your problems aren't where you work.

You did'nt drink enough powdered yaks milk when you were younger. Take a hard look at your work ethics!!!

 

[CA1900]

Do you want to be called at 3am in the morning for trips?

You mean like I did when pulling reserve at an airline?

No thanks. I much prefer to know my start time before I go to bed the night before. That's how it works at NJ.

Do you want to be gone for more than 6 days at a time?

If it means I get to be home for more than 6 days at a time, then yes, absolutely. I'd rather work a longer stretch, then have lots of time off. 7 days off is nice.

Plus, as a newhire, my vacation gets me two 21-day stretches of time off in a year. As a 10-year pilot, I get four of them a year. In both cases, I get hotel and airline points that buy me a positive-space seat and a kickass hotel room, anywhere I want.

Do you want to load luggage and clean airplanes all day?

I'd say I generally spend less than 20 minutes a day on those tasks. Throw a few items in the trash bag, drop it on the ramp for the line service to take away, wipe a tray table or two, and run the vacuum for 30 seconds. For any significant cleaning, I down the plane and call a pro.

Do you want your plans for the day to be changed 4 times before you leave the hotel or possibly in route?

Truly, I don't care. The last-minute change to the plan the other day meant they could only find a First Class seat for me to get home from the new city. Oh, well.

I greatly prefer the variety of flying I see at NJA to the monotony of going back to Cleveland every other leg. That's me. Some folks like the consistency and the predictability, and that's fine too. But don't denigrate those of us who find it boring hell to go back and forth to a hub. Different people like different kinds of flying.

Besides, if the "new plan" schedules me to do more work than my body can handle, I simply call up and tell them I'm too tired. I get 14 hours off, and they find somebody else. I did it just last week, in fact, and enjoyed a nice mid-week break by the pool at a Hilton to recuperate.

Do you want to eat crew food the rest of your life?

Beats eating from Burger King and that godawful bagel shop in Cleveland for the rest of my life, hands-down. The roast pork loin and fresh-made red-skinned mashed potatoes I had last week out of Eagle were absolutely phenomenal. Next week I might enjoy a pulled pork sandwich, a chorizo breakfast burrito, or maybe a nice sirloin.


No, this job isn't for everyone. It's more work, but more rewarding work, than I experienced at the airlines. But I think you have some serious misconceptions about what we do in a typical day. That's OK -- my last boss had the same misconceptions about the NJA job when I gave my notice to leave that one. There's a lot of misinformation out there.

No sweating in the heat of the summer loading bags and cleaning the airplane etc...

Yeah, like a regional pilot doesn't sweat in the cockpit of his RJ, with a deferred APU and a useless ground A/C unit... (And yes, that exact scenario played out when I airlined on CoEx the other day.)

No sweating here, either, because I run the APU to my heart's content, no questions asked, put a CD in the cabin stereo, and spend a few minutes getting the plane prepped for the next flight before I sit down inside and enjoy my lunch on my 90-minute turn. I had a couple hours of down time in Denver the other day, and we played a nice game of pool in the pilot's lounge at Signature while waiting for our passengers.


You're not cut out for this job -- I get it. I happen to like it, and the rewards, both financial and in quality of life, are substantial.