wrxpilot

A difference of about $55,000. I'd say that's a fair bit of money, but that's just me... But I do see your point and agree that regional airline salaries are way too low.

NightIP

Worked at all of 'em, or is that just what you've "heard"? Just remember for every crappy regional job, there's a crappy corporate job to go along with it.

boilerpilot

I hate the argument from pilots that they didn't feel ready for the 121 world so they decided to go to GIA because GIA would help them through the training(see tprop4ever). BS. Why would you pay that kind of money for a turbine job if, before this last 8 months you could get a job without problems, assuming you had a pulse? It's because those people tried to get real, legitimate jobs, but were turned down, probably because of lack of experience. So, an airline thinks you aren't qualified to fly their airplanes, but you think that if only you were to get 15 minutes of help from teacher after class, that's what'll make the difference? Like I said. BS.

170Homie

Question? (cause someone brought it up and it was never replied too) Not defending GTA but what about the pilots that were hired off the street? I know a couple of captains personally and they ARE great sticks! They never paid a DIME for the program. Just got laid off from another regional and that was all that was available.

Rnav

I can't comment for others, but the general disagreement on this thread is the fact that people are paying to be FO's in the rightseat. Not direct hire captains... unless of course they have an "internship" for the leftseat we haven't discussed yet. Those guys/gals are paid employees hence I think there is no issue.

deadstick35

Good question. Any idea where they were on the seniority list and whether they are furloughed, too? Sounds like that was a legit street CA job just like Great Lakes, Colgan and, I think, Mesaba was doing that last year, too.

bohicagain

I was hired in Jan 07 as a street CA. I had about 6 off the street CA in my class and all but one was left around Dec 07. The last CA was about to go to the right seat but took a LOA and found job in India making 10K a month.

As far as the program I flew with both street FO and program FO's.
I flew with a couple of Military guys that had over 10 years in the army and had a GI BILL and used that to pay.

170Homie

Yeah, just spoke to one. He's still there. HIRED in March 06. Said there were a bunch of guys both CA and FO's hired around that time cause there weren't enough guys going through the academy.

Listen I hear ya about getting flight instructing under you're belt. I did it and it was very beneficial but I gotta tell you, if I had the cash, I would have done the GTA route as well. I have a buddy of mine that went to school with me and we finished our initial certs. at the same time (PPL-Comm Multi.) I decided to instruct and he had the green and went the GTA route cause he was a kinda introvert and didn't think he could teach. Today, were both here at the same regional only thing, he got here 2 years quicker and is currently waiting for his upgrade number to be called while I float near the bottom of the seniority list. While he was done at GTA and got hired right away, I was busy wondering if I'm gonna chop this guy (student) in the throat and take the controls for freezing up on a stall! He had plenty of 121 turbine-multi when he got hired and I barely made it through the interview with my whopping 87.2 hours of Seminole time. Looking back, if I had the cash, I woulda done it. Seniority+experience is everything. I STILL ended up paying like 22 grand for all my certs. He payed I think 29K. Now that internship crap, now there's NO defending that hussel.

Tony40mo

I think to be honest everyone understands both sides of the argument all to well and if the economy was booming no one would pass much remarks to what was going on at Gulfstream or anywhere else.

I mean you could look at europe I see plenty asking what is the minimums and pay rates for Ryan Air are.....would you really want to fly with them either ?

I mean the cadet schemes in many of the european airlines the student pays for the MCC and Type Rating up front after 200hrs are cadets and probably some of them are in the right seats with less hours than a CFI, should we condem them all.

Every Pilot out there has come into aviation through a different avenue started at different ages etc.

A lot of the comments here are barbaric particularly the last 3 accidents the crews were all Gulfstream pilots the 100 before were probably CFIs does that mean the CFI way is wrong HELL no so many have got off topic here its unreal.

To be honest I just want to fly with people who follow checklists and procedures and fly the aircraft to the same standards every flight.
Not spend my life looking down my nose at anyone here because of how they made it to where they are now.

Purpleanga

You're not actually comparing the premier JAA airline training programs to that of Gulfstream right? If I was in the EU, where for most flying is an impossibility, I would do anything to get a cadet spot at Lufthansa or British or something, that's a career investment if you do really have to pay for something. But Gulfstream??? In the U.S? Gulfstream is a big fat scam pay for a job program. You pay to sit right seat on a single pilot certified airplane and are thrown to the street after 250 hours. Next victim please. It's a bad idea to go there even under the best pilot markets because the best you will do after 250 hours there is go to another regional which you could have gone without paying 35000. Now it's just plain idiotic to go there, hence the desperate alliances they're making with every other struggling pilot mill out there.