Trogdor

Why does anyone want to work at Lakes?

Do you enjoy qualifying for food stamps?

Do you want to live in Farmington, NM or any of our soon-to-be out-station bases?

Do you look forward to an upgrade process where if you mislable a limitation on the final they send you back to the right seat for six months?

Do you enjoy flying beater aircraft that are falling apart more and more every day?

How about losing 15 hours of pay each month because of shotty maintenance causing cancellations for which you do not get reimbursed?

Or there is the always popular junior-man where you thought you were heading home, but alas the company's lack of proper pilot scheduling causes you to now work on a day off. Sound like fun?

There's always the efficient scheduling of 30+ hour overnights in cities you've never heard of.

And beat of all, with no movement in the industry, you will be trapped here for ever, congratulations.

Blkflyer

Trogdor are you at Lakes right now

1900luxuryliner

I think you are speaking about the extreme end of things, and not the average. I have maybe seen the negative things you listed about once or twice in over two years. Maybe I'm lucky. That is just from my experience. If you regularly experience all of the things you listed, you must have a gray cloud following you around at Lakes; I don't know. Have you been junior-manned a lot, since you've been back at Lakes? We haven't really had significant junior-manning for a long time now. But, being that you came back and were given the lowest seniority number, maybe it's really had an affect on you. With "final" in upgrade, you must be speaking about the pre-test? Yeah, I don't think most people are especially fond of that.....there is so much more I could say about that, but it's a bit off topic. Upgrade is more of a month-long checkride, rather than "upgrade training". The pre-test basically ensures that you have prepared yourself for this month-long checkride. There is really not much new information presented during upgrade ground. They put recurrent FOs and recurrent captains in the same ground school with the upgrade candidates, and give the same info they did during initial ground. They don't really present recurrent information on the same level that it has to be known for upgrade candidates. All the extra stuff that is required of a captain really has to be learned on one's own time. I disagree with this, significantly. Just a heads up for those looking at upgrading quickly at Lakes. You will have to spend a few months, during your days off, studying as much as you can, in order to prepare for upgrade. Like I said, upgrade is an evaluation event; not really a training event. That being said, the sim instructors really do their best to work with your weaknesses, and prepare you the best they can. And, if a person has questions during upgrade/recurrent ground, all the instructors are more than happy to answer. But, if you haven't spent enough time preparing on your own time: a. you won't pass the pretest; and b. if you do happen to pass the pretest, you won't make it through sim or the oral.

Luv2Rotate

Yeah no problem. A good friend of mine was just furloughed from that place so not sure whats going on. I have 121 experience (furloughed) and currently fly for Berry Air based in San Marcos TX. My times arent great but not bad either.

2172TT, 1135ME, 1570Turboprop

I applied once in December and again in January. Hope this helps!

Purpleanga

Not bad at all my friend considering they were hiring 300 hour pilots about a year ago.

Luv2Rotate

Yeah, alot changes in a year. Like Horizon having furloughs

Purpleanga

Probably going to be a shock coming from Horizon then.

Luv2Rotate

Well it can't be as bad as a 135 cargo operation.

papacharlie

congrats Luv2Rotate.I will send my stuff anyways and wait.

Luv2Rotate

Ah no need to congratulate. First things first, Phone call is good! Letter in the mail is bad. Good luck to ya