Mesa Pilot Applicants (Helpful)
08-14-2020, 04:58 PM
#1
Gets Weekends Off
Thread Starter
Joined APC: Jul 2019
Posts: 486
Mesa Pilot Applicants (Helpful)
This posting is for the 425 applicants who applied for Mesa recently.
I think it's important to be armed with the facts going in, and as someone who has been in your shoes I think it is important to share my experience as it will help better inform you. As aviators we should all look out for each other. In the paragraphs below I'm going to lay out the process and point out some of the things I think are not talked about, but probably should be as you are thinking about starting your career at Mesa right now. Please excuse the grammar errors.
From New Hire to Now:
Interview to showing up at the front door:
Skype style interview about my currency and qualifications was pretty straight forward. From the call to a Conditional Job Offer (CJO) was approximately 12 hours. For some this process may be a little longer with whats going on right now. The company sent me a positive space ticket to PHX and booked me at a nearby hotel the night before I started. I knew I would be there for some time, so I elected to drive there myself. Once you arrive, you will have no way of traveling back home for about a month. The process to use the "free" flights doesn't kick in until about 30 days into training.
First Day at Mesa:
First 2 days you are at Mesa, you are not actually paid. You are there on your own dime working for free. Weird right? It's 2 days of "pre indoc" where they investigate all of your paperwork to see if you are actually hire-able, or if they want to send you home. Think carefully about quitting your last job before your "first day" at Mesa as they did send someone home my first day. The classes start on Wednesday, hence WED-THUR you are there for free on your dime and Friday is your first day of work. This will be your "Date of hire" for the company where you will start accumulating "Seniority." On a good note Mesa management will buy you lunch the first 2 days, pizza and Mexican food. Its the only meal Mesa has ever bought me. The staff from my experience is a rotating door, so don't spend too much time getting to know their names, as they won't be the same in 12 months. If everyone knows a particular person's name, its safe to say that person will be there in 12 months time.
Before we get into the training past this point I would like to point out how much you get paid during training prior to actually flying the "line." The line refers to being out of the job if you will, flying passengers. So you will hear Sim Flying and Line flying often among pilots. The current pilot contract pays 1st Year First Officers $36.00 an hour. Confusing because you probably want to know how much every 2 weeks. Everyone's mileage may vary, but $36 an hour works out to be approx $1090 every 2 weeks (filing single in a non income tax state like Texas or Florida). No per diem of $1.65 an hour is provided. No bonuses are currently being offered, so this is most likely the number you will see if you are a single guy/gal. First paycheck comes 30 days after starting.
Ground School/Simulator training:
1 week INDOC with an easy test
2 weeks Systems with test
3-4 days FPT's with practical test
12 ish SIMS with checkride and oral (more if you fail these events)
Important facts left out that you should know. Simulator sessions are almost exclusively in the middle of the night. If you are not used to learning and peak performing in the middle of the night, I would start practicing. It might be new to you, as most of your training prior to Mesa has been in Part 141. Paying for training vs being paid to train is completely different. This is why you will hear that military guys do a little better in training. They have been in this environment before. If you fail any events in training by the way it is recorded and sent to the FAA in a format referred to as PRIA. Long story short, if you fail events you can't hid it. This will hurt your chances of moving onto mainline if you have alot of failures or repeat Simulator events. Ground School tests are on your PRIA. Big take away... Study and don't suck. If you show up on day 1 without knowing your limits flows, and callouts.... you are behind.
After SIM training aka last step aka IOE:
Ok, you finished your Type Rating and/or ATP check ride now its off to IOE. First flight is with passengers onboard like any normal flight you have every been on. IOE stands for Initial Operating Experience. It is where the company pairs you with a training Captain specifically qualified to teach new hires. Basically they can fly the plane and talk on the radios single piloted while you become acclimated to flying in a jet. You will do almost all of the landings and fly all of the legs for 25-50 hours. 25 is the minimum, but some have gone as long as 100hrs.
POST IOE:
During that first two weeks of being at the company they will tell you the base that you are assigned. You don't get first choice in your base as some might have led you to believe unless you are E175.
To be assigned when the next bid comes up you need the following seniority to hold the base:
PHX Date of Hire 7/2019
DFW Date of Hire 11/2019
SDF Date of Hire 9/2019
IAD Date of Hire New hire
IAH Date of Hire All E175
Per the contract, you can't switch bases for several months, so figure you will be at the first base at least 3 months after IOE or even longer. This generally leads to commuting, but the best advise I can give is LIVE IN BASE. Traveling from your home where you live now to your base and be available for assignment can be near impossible.
You are now a freshly minted First Officer ready to fly those 75-90 hours you were promised right? Nope. You'll be most likely guaranteed to get the rest of the hours up to 100 hours within 120 days from check ride. The term for this is "Consolidation." The company initially puts you on reserve once you finish IOE. What is reserve you may ask. Its on call flying at the will of the company. At Mesa I have been here from 12-24 months and I am still on reserve. Less than 400 hours in my first year. At the peak before COVID I was seeing 40 hrs a month on reserve.
Rules of Reserve at MESA:
Junior people will be assigned Airport Ready. This is where you have to sit in a room for 10 hours at the airport being ready to go fly in uniform. You can go to other places in the airport during this time but need to be inside security. This may be a touchy subject for some people on here that are Captains, but when on reserve you will most likely fly with people who are on the NO FLY LIST. Captains with huge CRM issues that senior FO's will call in sick during a trip to avoid. Hence, why you are called. If the Captain says he was on reserve as well, then they are generally pretty good guys to fly with. This is generally the rule, but I have had some exceptions. Reserve pilots only have 11 days off a month, as Line holders (Senior guys will have anywhere from 15-21 days off. No joke with a predetermined schedule flying those 75hrs or more. On reserve you can only work blocks of 3 to 6 days in a row. This means you can't work 2 days then have some off, its 3 days in a row, 4 days in a row, 5 days in a row, or 6 days in a row. Your days off are based on seniority, so at first you don't even get to decide what days you have off. As you build seniority you will get off airport reserve and get more days of short call. That's 2 hour callout. 2x different shifts of short call are: 0400-1600 also called RS1 and 1200-2359 RS3. So lets say you live in DFW area and got IAD assigned. You would need to commute in the night before and stay for 3-6 days somewhere within IAD for 12 hours a day. No flights get you to IAD from DFW by 6am IAD time. Commuting in and out in the same day on reserve is highly unlikely. Right as of 8/2020 and for the past 120 days most new pilots (less than 24 months of hire) have been getting less than 10 hours a month. Some less or none. Sitting in base on Short call every day not flying and buying hotels or paying for a crash pad.
Reserve Story time:
MESA scheduling calls you at 4:02AM on your first day of reserve and tells you that you have been moved to evening airport reserve. You start your sleep the night before being all rested for a day of RS1 (0400-1600), and they call call you to notify you of a schedule change. You have been moved to airport ready at 2:02 PM. Legally (not ethically) they have to give you 10hrs of rest which makes this "paper legal."Then at 9:30pm as the last flights leave you get assigned a deadhead to fly another flight from another base. The last flight leaves late due to maintenance delay and you end up going over the legal duty limit. Didn't end up going to sleep until 5:30am. As a bonus, they guy you get to fly with the guy on everyone's NO FLY LIST. This might not happen to you, but it does happen. Being new, you'll try to not make a fuss and not say anything about how many hours they have kept you up. Then when scheduling does it to you, they blame you for not saying anything. Its your responsibility they say. The only positive I could take away from that experience was that I didn't have to pay for a hotel room that night, because I was assigned a trip.
Extra:
Flight benefits (nonrev travel) will cost you every year. $200-300. If you are on E175 you only get United Benefits, CRJ gets both American and United, and 737 pilots get none.
I am super thankful for my time at MESA. If I had known all the above instead of being surprised as it happened that would have made my time even better. Good luck to everyone applying or those who might or might not be starting. I wish everyone success in their career and hope this was helpful. If you would like to read through the MESA Pilot Contract Contact a MESA ALPA REP and see if they will give you a copy. It's a good read.
I think it's important to be armed with the facts going in, and as someone who has been in your shoes I think it is important to share my experience as it will help better inform you. As aviators we should all look out for each other. In the paragraphs below I'm going to lay out the process and point out some of the things I think are not talked about, but probably should be as you are thinking about starting your career at Mesa right now. Please excuse the grammar errors.
From New Hire to Now:
Interview to showing up at the front door:
Skype style interview about my currency and qualifications was pretty straight forward. From the call to a Conditional Job Offer (CJO) was approximately 12 hours. For some this process may be a little longer with whats going on right now. The company sent me a positive space ticket to PHX and booked me at a nearby hotel the night before I started. I knew I would be there for some time, so I elected to drive there myself. Once you arrive, you will have no way of traveling back home for about a month. The process to use the "free" flights doesn't kick in until about 30 days into training.
First Day at Mesa:
First 2 days you are at Mesa, you are not actually paid. You are there on your own dime working for free. Weird right? It's 2 days of "pre indoc" where they investigate all of your paperwork to see if you are actually hire-able, or if they want to send you home. Think carefully about quitting your last job before your "first day" at Mesa as they did send someone home my first day. The classes start on Wednesday, hence WED-THUR you are there for free on your dime and Friday is your first day of work. This will be your "Date of hire" for the company where you will start accumulating "Seniority." On a good note Mesa management will buy you lunch the first 2 days, pizza and Mexican food. Its the only meal Mesa has ever bought me. The staff from my experience is a rotating door, so don't spend too much time getting to know their names, as they won't be the same in 12 months. If everyone knows a particular person's name, its safe to say that person will be there in 12 months time.
Before we get into the training past this point I would like to point out how much you get paid during training prior to actually flying the "line." The line refers to being out of the job if you will, flying passengers. So you will hear Sim Flying and Line flying often among pilots. The current pilot contract pays 1st Year First Officers $36.00 an hour. Confusing because you probably want to know how much every 2 weeks. Everyone's mileage may vary, but $36 an hour works out to be approx $1090 every 2 weeks (filing single in a non income tax state like Texas or Florida). No per diem of $1.65 an hour is provided. No bonuses are currently being offered, so this is most likely the number you will see if you are a single guy/gal. First paycheck comes 30 days after starting.
Ground School/Simulator training:
1 week INDOC with an easy test
2 weeks Systems with test
3-4 days FPT's with practical test
12 ish SIMS with checkride and oral (more if you fail these events)
Important facts left out that you should know. Simulator sessions are almost exclusively in the middle of the night. If you are not used to learning and peak performing in the middle of the night, I would start practicing. It might be new to you, as most of your training prior to Mesa has been in Part 141. Paying for training vs being paid to train is completely different. This is why you will hear that military guys do a little better in training. They have been in this environment before. If you fail any events in training by the way it is recorded and sent to the FAA in a format referred to as PRIA. Long story short, if you fail events you can't hid it. This will hurt your chances of moving onto mainline if you have alot of failures or repeat Simulator events. Ground School tests are on your PRIA. Big take away... Study and don't suck. If you show up on day 1 without knowing your limits flows, and callouts.... you are behind.
After SIM training aka last step aka IOE:
Ok, you finished your Type Rating and/or ATP check ride now its off to IOE. First flight is with passengers onboard like any normal flight you have every been on. IOE stands for Initial Operating Experience. It is where the company pairs you with a training Captain specifically qualified to teach new hires. Basically they can fly the plane and talk on the radios single piloted while you become acclimated to flying in a jet. You will do almost all of the landings and fly all of the legs for 25-50 hours. 25 is the minimum, but some have gone as long as 100hrs.
POST IOE:
During that first two weeks of being at the company they will tell you the base that you are assigned. You don't get first choice in your base as some might have led you to believe unless you are E175.
To be assigned when the next bid comes up you need the following seniority to hold the base:
PHX Date of Hire 7/2019
DFW Date of Hire 11/2019
SDF Date of Hire 9/2019
IAD Date of Hire New hire
IAH Date of Hire All E175
Per the contract, you can't switch bases for several months, so figure you will be at the first base at least 3 months after IOE or even longer. This generally leads to commuting, but the best advise I can give is LIVE IN BASE. Traveling from your home where you live now to your base and be available for assignment can be near impossible.
You are now a freshly minted First Officer ready to fly those 75-90 hours you were promised right? Nope. You'll be most likely guaranteed to get the rest of the hours up to 100 hours within 120 days from check ride. The term for this is "Consolidation." The company initially puts you on reserve once you finish IOE. What is reserve you may ask. Its on call flying at the will of the company. At Mesa I have been here from 12-24 months and I am still on reserve. Less than 400 hours in my first year. At the peak before COVID I was seeing 40 hrs a month on reserve.
Rules of Reserve at MESA:
Junior people will be assigned Airport Ready. This is where you have to sit in a room for 10 hours at the airport being ready to go fly in uniform. You can go to other places in the airport during this time but need to be inside security. This may be a touchy subject for some people on here that are Captains, but when on reserve you will most likely fly with people who are on the NO FLY LIST. Captains with huge CRM issues that senior FO's will call in sick during a trip to avoid. Hence, why you are called. If the Captain says he was on reserve as well, then they are generally pretty good guys to fly with. This is generally the rule, but I have had some exceptions. Reserve pilots only have 11 days off a month, as Line holders (Senior guys will have anywhere from 15-21 days off. No joke with a predetermined schedule flying those 75hrs or more. On reserve you can only work blocks of 3 to 6 days in a row. This means you can't work 2 days then have some off, its 3 days in a row, 4 days in a row, 5 days in a row, or 6 days in a row. Your days off are based on seniority, so at first you don't even get to decide what days you have off. As you build seniority you will get off airport reserve and get more days of short call. That's 2 hour callout. 2x different shifts of short call are: 0400-1600 also called RS1 and 1200-2359 RS3. So lets say you live in DFW area and got IAD assigned. You would need to commute in the night before and stay for 3-6 days somewhere within IAD for 12 hours a day. No flights get you to IAD from DFW by 6am IAD time. Commuting in and out in the same day on reserve is highly unlikely. Right as of 8/2020 and for the past 120 days most new pilots (less than 24 months of hire) have been getting less than 10 hours a month. Some less or none. Sitting in base on Short call every day not flying and buying hotels or paying for a crash pad.
Reserve Story time:
MESA scheduling calls you at 4:02AM on your first day of reserve and tells you that you have been moved to evening airport reserve. You start your sleep the night before being all rested for a day of RS1 (0400-1600), and they call call you to notify you of a schedule change. You have been moved to airport ready at 2:02 PM. Legally (not ethically) they have to give you 10hrs of rest which makes this "paper legal."Then at 9:30pm as the last flights leave you get assigned a deadhead to fly another flight from another base. The last flight leaves late due to maintenance delay and you end up going over the legal duty limit. Didn't end up going to sleep until 5:30am. As a bonus, they guy you get to fly with the guy on everyone's NO FLY LIST. This might not happen to you, but it does happen. Being new, you'll try to not make a fuss and not say anything about how many hours they have kept you up. Then when scheduling does it to you, they blame you for not saying anything. Its your responsibility they say. The only positive I could take away from that experience was that I didn't have to pay for a hotel room that night, because I was assigned a trip.
Extra:
Flight benefits (nonrev travel) will cost you every year. $200-300. If you are on E175 you only get United Benefits, CRJ gets both American and United, and 737 pilots get none.
I am super thankful for my time at MESA. If I had known all the above instead of being surprised as it happened that would have made my time even better. Good luck to everyone applying or those who might or might not be starting. I wish everyone success in their career and hope this was helpful. If you would like to read through the MESA Pilot Contract Contact a MESA ALPA REP and see if they will give you a copy. It's a good read.
08-14-2020, 06:16 PM
#3
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Oct 2017
Posts: 933
This posting is for the 425 applicants who applied for Mesa recently.
I think it's important to be armed with the facts going in, and as someone who has been in your shoes I think it is important to share my experience as it will help better inform you. As aviators we should all look out for each other. In the paragraphs below I'm going to lay out the process and point out some of the things I think are not talked about, but probably should be as you are thinking about starting your career at Mesa right now. Please excuse the grammar errors.
From New Hire to Now:
Interview to showing up at the front door:
Skype style interview about my currency and qualifications was pretty straight forward. From the call to a Conditional Job Offer (CJO) was approximately 12 hours. For some this process may be a little longer with whats going on right now. The company sent me a positive space ticket to PHX and booked me at a nearby hotel the night before I started. I knew I would be there for some time, so I elected to drive there myself. Once you arrive, you will have no way of traveling back home for about a month. The process to use the "free" flights doesn't kick in until about 30 days into training.
First Day at Mesa:
First 2 days you are at Mesa, you are not actually paid. You are there on your own dime working for free. Weird right? It's 2 days of "pre indoc" where they investigate all of your paperwork to see if you are actually hire-able, or if they want to send you home. Think carefully about quitting your last job before your "first day" at Mesa as they did send someone home my first day. The classes start on Wednesday, hence WED-THUR you are there for free on your dime and Friday is your first day of work. This will be your "Date of hire" for the company where you will start accumulating "Seniority." On a good note Mesa management will buy you lunch the first 2 days, pizza and Mexican food. Its the only meal Mesa has ever bought me. The staff from my experience is a rotating door, so don't spend too much time getting to know their names, as they won't be the same in 12 months. If everyone knows a particular person's name, its safe to say that person will be there in 12 months time.
Before we get into the training past this point I would like to point out how much you get paid during training prior to actually flying the "line." The line refers to being out of the job if you will, flying passengers. So you will hear Sim Flying and Line flying often among pilots. The current pilot contract pays 1st Year First Officers $36.00 an hour. Confusing because you probably want to know how much every 2 weeks. Everyone's mileage may vary, but $36 an hour works out to be approx $1090 every 2 weeks (filing single in a non income tax state like Texas or Florida). No per diem of $1.65 an hour is provided. No bonuses are currently being offered, so this is most likely the number you will see if you are a single guy/gal. First paycheck comes 30 days after starting.
Ground School/Simulator training:
1 week INDOC with an easy test
2 weeks Systems with test
3-4 days FPT's with practical test
12 ish SIMS with checkride and oral (more if you fail these events)
Important facts left out that you should know. Simulator sessions are almost exclusively in the middle of the night. If you are not used to learning and peak performing in the middle of the night, I would start practicing. It might be new to you, as most of your training prior to Mesa has been in Part 141. Paying for training vs being paid to train is completely different. This is why you will hear that military guys do a little better in training. They have been in this environment before. If you fail any events in training by the way it is recorded and sent to the FAA in a format referred to as PRIA. Long story short, if you fail events you can't hid it. This will hurt your chances of moving onto mainline if you have alot of failures or repeat Simulator events. Ground School tests are on your PRIA. Big take away... Study and don't suck. If you show up on day 1 without knowing your limits flows, and callouts.... you are behind.
After SIM training aka last step aka IOE:
Ok, you finished your Type Rating and/or ATP check ride now its off to IOE. First flight is with passengers onboard like any normal flight you have every been on. IOE stands for Initial Operating Experience. It is where the company pairs you with a training Captain specifically qualified to teach new hires. Basically they can fly the plane and talk on the radios single piloted while you become acclimated to flying in a jet. You will do almost all of the landings and fly all of the legs for 25-50 hours. 25 is the minimum, but some have gone as long as 100hrs.
POST IOE:
During that first two weeks of being at the company they will tell you the base that you are assigned. You don't get first choice in your base as some might have led you to believe unless you are E175.
To be assigned when the next bid comes up you need the following seniority to hold the base:
PHX Date of Hire 7/2019
DFW Date of Hire 11/2019
SDF Date of Hire 9/2019
IAD Date of Hire New hire
IAH Date of Hire All E175
Per the contract, you can't switch bases for several months, so figure you will be at the first base at least 3 months after IOE or even longer. This generally leads to commuting, but the best advise I can give is LIVE IN BASE. Traveling from your home where you live now to your base and be available for assignment can be near impossible.
You are now a freshly minted First Officer ready to fly those 75-90 hours you were promised right? Nope. You'll be most likely guaranteed to get the rest of the hours up to 100 hours within 120 days from check ride. The term for this is "Consolidation." The company initially puts you on reserve once you finish IOE. What is reserve you may ask. Its on call flying at the will of the company. At Mesa I have been here from 12-24 months and I am still on reserve. Less than 400 hours in my first year. At the peak before COVID I was seeing 40 hrs a month on reserve.
Rules of Reserve at MESA:
Junior people will be assigned Airport Ready. This is where you have to sit in a room for 10 hours at the airport being ready to go fly in uniform. You can go to other places in the airport during this time but need to be inside security. This may be a touchy subject for some people on here that are Captains, but when on reserve you will most likely fly with people who are on the NO FLY LIST. Captains with huge CRM issues that senior FO's will call in sick during a trip to avoid. Hence, why you are called. If the Captain says he was on reserve as well, then they are generally pretty good guys to fly with. This is generally the rule, but I have had some exceptions. Reserve pilots only have 11 days off a month, as Line holders (Senior guys will have anywhere from 15-21 days off. No joke with a predetermined schedule flying those 75hrs or more. On reserve you can only work blocks of 3 to 6 days in a row. This means you can't work 2 days then have some off, its 3 days in a row, 4 days in a row, 5 days in a row, or 6 days in a row. Your days off are based on seniority, so at first you don't even get to decide what days you have off. As you build seniority you will get off airport reserve and get more days of short call. That's 2 hour callout. 2x different shifts of short call are: 0400-1600 also called RS1 and 1200-2359 RS3. So lets say you live in DFW area and got IAD assigned. You would need to commute in the night before and stay for 3-6 days somewhere within IAD for 12 hours a day. No flights get you to IAD from DFW by 6am IAD time. Commuting in and out in the same day on reserve is highly unlikely. Right as of 8/2020 and for the past 120 days most new pilots (less than 24 months of hire) have been getting less than 10 hours a month. Some less or none. Sitting in base on Short call every day not flying and buying hotels or paying for a crash pad.
Reserve Story time:
MESA scheduling calls you at 4:02AM on your first day of reserve and tells you that you have been moved to evening airport reserve. You start your sleep the night before being all rested for a day of RS1 (0400-1600), and they call call you to notify you of a schedule change. You have been moved to airport ready at 2:02 PM. Legally (not ethically) they have to give you 10hrs of rest which makes this "paper legal."Then at 9:30pm as the last flights leave you get assigned a deadhead to fly another flight from another base. The last flight leaves late due to maintenance delay and you end up going over the legal duty limit. Didn't end up going to sleep until 5:30am. As a bonus, they guy you get to fly with the guy on everyone's NO FLY LIST. This might not happen to you, but it does happen. Being new, you'll try to not make a fuss and not say anything about how many hours they have kept you up. Then when scheduling does it to you, they blame you for not saying anything. Its your responsibility they say. The only positive I could take away from that experience was that I didn't have to pay for a hotel room that night, because I was assigned a trip.
Extra:
Flight benefits (nonrev travel) will cost you every year. $200-300. If you are on E175 you only get United Benefits, CRJ gets both American and United, and 737 pilots get none.
I am super thankful for my time at MESA. If I had known all the above instead of being surprised as it happened that would have made my time even better. Good luck to everyone applying or those who might or might not be starting. I wish everyone success in their career and hope this was helpful. If you would like to read through the MESA Pilot Contract Contact a MESA ALPA REP and see if they will give you a copy. It's a good read.
I think it's important to be armed with the facts going in, and as someone who has been in your shoes I think it is important to share my experience as it will help better inform you. As aviators we should all look out for each other. In the paragraphs below I'm going to lay out the process and point out some of the things I think are not talked about, but probably should be as you are thinking about starting your career at Mesa right now. Please excuse the grammar errors.
From New Hire to Now:
Interview to showing up at the front door:
Skype style interview about my currency and qualifications was pretty straight forward. From the call to a Conditional Job Offer (CJO) was approximately 12 hours. For some this process may be a little longer with whats going on right now. The company sent me a positive space ticket to PHX and booked me at a nearby hotel the night before I started. I knew I would be there for some time, so I elected to drive there myself. Once you arrive, you will have no way of traveling back home for about a month. The process to use the "free" flights doesn't kick in until about 30 days into training.
First Day at Mesa:
First 2 days you are at Mesa, you are not actually paid. You are there on your own dime working for free. Weird right? It's 2 days of "pre indoc" where they investigate all of your paperwork to see if you are actually hire-able, or if they want to send you home. Think carefully about quitting your last job before your "first day" at Mesa as they did send someone home my first day. The classes start on Wednesday, hence WED-THUR you are there for free on your dime and Friday is your first day of work. This will be your "Date of hire" for the company where you will start accumulating "Seniority." On a good note Mesa management will buy you lunch the first 2 days, pizza and Mexican food. Its the only meal Mesa has ever bought me. The staff from my experience is a rotating door, so don't spend too much time getting to know their names, as they won't be the same in 12 months. If everyone knows a particular person's name, its safe to say that person will be there in 12 months time.
Before we get into the training past this point I would like to point out how much you get paid during training prior to actually flying the "line." The line refers to being out of the job if you will, flying passengers. So you will hear Sim Flying and Line flying often among pilots. The current pilot contract pays 1st Year First Officers $36.00 an hour. Confusing because you probably want to know how much every 2 weeks. Everyone's mileage may vary, but $36 an hour works out to be approx $1090 every 2 weeks (filing single in a non income tax state like Texas or Florida). No per diem of $1.65 an hour is provided. No bonuses are currently being offered, so this is most likely the number you will see if you are a single guy/gal. First paycheck comes 30 days after starting.
Ground School/Simulator training:
1 week INDOC with an easy test
2 weeks Systems with test
3-4 days FPT's with practical test
12 ish SIMS with checkride and oral (more if you fail these events)
Important facts left out that you should know. Simulator sessions are almost exclusively in the middle of the night. If you are not used to learning and peak performing in the middle of the night, I would start practicing. It might be new to you, as most of your training prior to Mesa has been in Part 141. Paying for training vs being paid to train is completely different. This is why you will hear that military guys do a little better in training. They have been in this environment before. If you fail any events in training by the way it is recorded and sent to the FAA in a format referred to as PRIA. Long story short, if you fail events you can't hid it. This will hurt your chances of moving onto mainline if you have alot of failures or repeat Simulator events. Ground School tests are on your PRIA. Big take away... Study and don't suck. If you show up on day 1 without knowing your limits flows, and callouts.... you are behind.
After SIM training aka last step aka IOE:
Ok, you finished your Type Rating and/or ATP check ride now its off to IOE. First flight is with passengers onboard like any normal flight you have every been on. IOE stands for Initial Operating Experience. It is where the company pairs you with a training Captain specifically qualified to teach new hires. Basically they can fly the plane and talk on the radios single piloted while you become acclimated to flying in a jet. You will do almost all of the landings and fly all of the legs for 25-50 hours. 25 is the minimum, but some have gone as long as 100hrs.
POST IOE:
During that first two weeks of being at the company they will tell you the base that you are assigned. You don't get first choice in your base as some might have led you to believe unless you are E175.
To be assigned when the next bid comes up you need the following seniority to hold the base:
PHX Date of Hire 7/2019
DFW Date of Hire 11/2019
SDF Date of Hire 9/2019
IAD Date of Hire New hire
IAH Date of Hire All E175
Per the contract, you can't switch bases for several months, so figure you will be at the first base at least 3 months after IOE or even longer. This generally leads to commuting, but the best advise I can give is LIVE IN BASE. Traveling from your home where you live now to your base and be available for assignment can be near impossible.
You are now a freshly minted First Officer ready to fly those 75-90 hours you were promised right? Nope. You'll be most likely guaranteed to get the rest of the hours up to 100 hours within 120 days from check ride. The term for this is "Consolidation." The company initially puts you on reserve once you finish IOE. What is reserve you may ask. Its on call flying at the will of the company. At Mesa I have been here from 12-24 months and I am still on reserve. Less than 400 hours in my first year. At the peak before COVID I was seeing 40 hrs a month on reserve.
Rules of Reserve at MESA:
Junior people will be assigned Airport Ready. This is where you have to sit in a room for 10 hours at the airport being ready to go fly in uniform. You can go to other places in the airport during this time but need to be inside security. This may be a touchy subject for some people on here that are Captains, but when on reserve you will most likely fly with people who are on the NO FLY LIST. Captains with huge CRM issues that senior FO's will call in sick during a trip to avoid. Hence, why you are called. If the Captain says he was on reserve as well, then they are generally pretty good guys to fly with. This is generally the rule, but I have had some exceptions. Reserve pilots only have 11 days off a month, as Line holders (Senior guys will have anywhere from 15-21 days off. No joke with a predetermined schedule flying those 75hrs or more. On reserve you can only work blocks of 3 to 6 days in a row. This means you can't work 2 days then have some off, its 3 days in a row, 4 days in a row, 5 days in a row, or 6 days in a row. Your days off are based on seniority, so at first you don't even get to decide what days you have off. As you build seniority you will get off airport reserve and get more days of short call. That's 2 hour callout. 2x different shifts of short call are: 0400-1600 also called RS1 and 1200-2359 RS3. So lets say you live in DFW area and got IAD assigned. You would need to commute in the night before and stay for 3-6 days somewhere within IAD for 12 hours a day. No flights get you to IAD from DFW by 6am IAD time. Commuting in and out in the same day on reserve is highly unlikely. Right as of 8/2020 and for the past 120 days most new pilots (less than 24 months of hire) have been getting less than 10 hours a month. Some less or none. Sitting in base on Short call every day not flying and buying hotels or paying for a crash pad.
Reserve Story time:
MESA scheduling calls you at 4:02AM on your first day of reserve and tells you that you have been moved to evening airport reserve. You start your sleep the night before being all rested for a day of RS1 (0400-1600), and they call call you to notify you of a schedule change. You have been moved to airport ready at 2:02 PM. Legally (not ethically) they have to give you 10hrs of rest which makes this "paper legal."Then at 9:30pm as the last flights leave you get assigned a deadhead to fly another flight from another base. The last flight leaves late due to maintenance delay and you end up going over the legal duty limit. Didn't end up going to sleep until 5:30am. As a bonus, they guy you get to fly with the guy on everyone's NO FLY LIST. This might not happen to you, but it does happen. Being new, you'll try to not make a fuss and not say anything about how many hours they have kept you up. Then when scheduling does it to you, they blame you for not saying anything. Its your responsibility they say. The only positive I could take away from that experience was that I didn't have to pay for a hotel room that night, because I was assigned a trip.
Extra:
Flight benefits (nonrev travel) will cost you every year. $200-300. If you are on E175 you only get United Benefits, CRJ gets both American and United, and 737 pilots get none.
I am super thankful for my time at MESA. If I had known all the above instead of being surprised as it happened that would have made my time even better. Good luck to everyone applying or those who might or might not be starting. I wish everyone success in their career and hope this was helpful. If you would like to read through the MESA Pilot Contract Contact a MESA ALPA REP and see if they will give you a copy. It's a good read.
08-14-2020, 07:50 PM
#5
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Oct 2017
Posts: 933
Also, you don’t have to be in the airport just capable of getting to a gate in 20 mins, I live in base so a bit of an extra luxury but I sit it in my car in the parking garage watching Netflix or Hulu +live tv not even in uniform. It’s not awful. Electric car so I don’t have to pay for gas while I sit there, just plug into either one of the airports car chargers or any outlet in the garage with a portable charger for free.
08-14-2020, 08:01 PM
#6
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Feb 2019
Position: baller, shot caller
Posts: 1,010
Make
Everyone
Suffer
Always
I can tell you that at my non regional (ULCC) airline, management and other groups of employees within the company don't go out of their way to make your life difficult. That was just not the case at MESA.
Want to get released an hour early on day 6 of reserve with no available duty time left for a turn, so that you can make a commute home? Not a chance pilot!
08-14-2020, 09:14 PM
#8
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Feb 2019
Posts: 121
08-14-2020, 09:30 PM
#9
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Oct 2017
Posts: 933
9th is checkride
10th is loft
11th (I’m not exactly sure when they do it) is UPRT.
correct no more 200.
08-14-2020, 10:16 PM
#10
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Sep 2006
Posts: 504
Also, you don’t have to be in the airport just capable of getting to a gate in 20 mins, I live in base so a bit of an extra luxury but I sit it in my car in the parking garage watching Netflix or Hulu +live tv not even in uniform. It’s not awful. Electric car so I don’t have to pay for gas while I sit there, just plug into either one of the airports car chargers or any outlet in the garage with a portable charger for free.
You got Model 3?
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