Duke990

There are a lot of factors that go into picking your first airline job but my personal experience is that CommutAir is pretty decent. I came from a different failing regional and there are many good things about CommutAir since I got here. We are a small group that feels more like family than co-workers. Management and the pilot group seem to get along pretty well. Flying a turbo-prop is great experience for your total pilot career. Upgrades are running between 2-2.5 years. We still have 3 years left on our contract with United to fly the Dash8's. And earlier this year we signed LOA8 which gave us the best FO starting pay in the regionals (tied with Horizon at $30), 4 free company paid hotels in base per month, and a rock solid commuter clause. The big thing we struggled with this year was CLE closing and having to relocate all of our maintenance to ALB. Our planes fell behind on certain maintenance items due to the high attrition of our mechanics and the overall logistics of moving our maintenance facilities. We have reduced our lines of flying to 16 while 4-5 of our planes get "C" checks. 2 are scheduled to come out of those checks in the next week or two and we are planning to ramp back up to 18-19 lines of flying in the next couple months. I think the big challenges are behind us and I expect to see an improvement in our operational reliability over the next couple months. Feel free to PM me with any questions.

Freebreakfast11

Its probably the most fun, relaxed pilot group you will find anywhere. I'm convinced I won't ever fly with a tighter, more cohesive group at any other airline

beau172

That's great to hear. I'm thinking of applying around March. Thanks for the info guys!

rbtower2

Awesome. Looking forward to seeing you here. Another thing to mention is we are pretty short first officers so reserve time is really really short for First Officers. I flew with a few new FOs who's reserve time was under 6 months and even on reserve you'll be flying a lot!

beau172

That's Great!

v1valarob

It actually sucks. I've been here since May and I'm still on reserve. We have zero reserve rules and they beat the **** out of you day in and out. You work every day, but it's a deadhead to ferry a broke ass plane.

But from what I hear line holder life is decent.

r0cknry

How much longer are you projected to be on reserve? Thats only 6 months. I know people at other regionals who were on reserve for years!

Duke990

The last several months, almost all the new-hires went to EWR so that left the guys toward the bottom of the list in IAD stuck on reserve since no new guys were back-filling. Add in the fact that we voluntarily dropped a line of flying because we have so many planes getting C-checks and you have more people on reserve, rather than holding a line. We are expected to pick back up to 18-19 lines of flying soon so that will help the reserve situation. It gets way better as a line holder. I promise v1valarob!

v1valarob

That's what spondivits and Irish bar will do.

To be fair my buddies who were in my class and are in EWR are line holders already. I think it took them 5 months from class date.

Most junior line holder in Dulles has something like 15 days off. Which is pretty good.

Flyhayes

One person from the July class has a line in November (EWR). Although, that could be due to someone senior to her bidding for reserve...