Ronaldo

This is actually pretty simple. On-time rate has dropped, attrition is high, completion factor and fuel burn are not what we averaged a few years ago. People no longer believe anything management says. mis-Managers can't figure out what planes to fly or not fly, can't decide where to locate F9 back room staff, think DRO-LAX is a good idea, wait nevermind...can't figure out Mokulele, get sued by EFB providers for failing to fulfill contracts, lie about creating/perpetuating a "culture club", (THAT was funny), illegally change block times, and swap parts on aircraft without making ANY logbook entries, etc etc...They have no idea how to manage, let alone LEAD people. They announce everything last minute, showing no respect for employees. They also prothletise us with their black magic religious crap. Seeing as how musicpilot has failed to provide any specifics, I label him/her a RAH manager or seabury stooge.

No one needs to know how pathetic our leadership is, they advertise it themselves everyday. So I will pipe down a bit I guess. But I can't in good conscience let someone come here thinking they are working for competent, honest or caring managers. Also just listen to management, 50% of the company is either being sold off or restructured, this must be a good place for your friends to work.

LAXSAAB

So I had a RP FO on my JS tonight, and he mentioned the the company proposed Pinnacles FO pay rates, and the union said no way. I was under the impression that under Pinnacles new CBA the FO rates topped out around $50. That would be a 25% pay increase for most FOs. He also mentioned some tier 3 FOs upgraded! Glad to hear!

RAH RAH REE

No, we don't know what the company proposed, only they had "increases" to the FO pay scale they tried to implement back in the spring. If I recall the majority of FOs only saw a couple dollar/hr increase with the scale topping out at $42 at Yr 7. I'm guessing it was around $42.01

They said they submitted "industry average" payrates, but the *******s in figuring the "average" only looked at 50 seat RJ operators and included Republics bottom feeder rates in the average!

drummflyer

Can anyone tell me most junior/senior bases for the 170 flying?

sqwkvfr

On the Shuttle America side, junior would most likely be outstation hell -CMH- and senior is ORD or ATL.

There are some people thinking that additional Ejet flying for AA would mean new bases, however, given rjet's past, I think that there will just be more flying brought into outstations like IND and CMH and a corresponding increase in fresh clients for the local sleep disorder clinics.

slumav505

Fwiw chq wanted to base everyone in GRR for the AA stuff we do now. AA told them to shove it which is why we have ORD.

lakehouse

bases in crappy out stations suck, esp when they open/close like crazy, however any that are sort of consistent are kind of nice, since its much cheaper right?? Id rather live in the Jax area or PNS area, as opposed to the MIA area.

snippercr

For the ->CURRENT<- AA flying CHQ does as Connection (not the soon-to-be 170/175 operations), is the only base ORD? Not entirely sure how that works - can a pilot who does some connection flying later do some flying for another carrier? Are there any differences the way the 140s for CHQ are configured vs the way they are for Eagle?

Sorry, just random pointless trivia I was wondering.

sqwkvfr

I don't think so for the following reasons:

-A pilot gets hired...forced to move to an outstation bases because the trips are uncommutable and it's a two-leg commute from most places in the country. Pilot meets girl, get's married, has kids, upgrades, buys house and is suddenly making good money and living in base. He isn't going anywhere...even if a top-tier mainline carrier calls, he's not gonna commute to reserve and take a pay cut for a few years. This limits upgrade opportunities and ultimately results in a senior (read: expensive) pilot group, and we've all seen what happens to contract carriers with senior pilots groups.

-Second, the show times are as early as 0445. That means you have to try to get to bed at 7AM to get a proper amount of sleep for a 3AM alarm. That cuts into your day off, and try, just try to fall asleep knowing that you have to wake up as early as 3AM. Then, get up, after not sleeping, work your day and sit in some fleabag hotel for 20+ hours. Generally you pass out as soon as you get in, and wake up later in the night...wide awake. Eventually you report the next day for a late morning or early afternoon report...having not slept worth a damn during the night. You then work the next day until late at night...oftentimes until after midnight to get back to base. VERY few trips at these outstations end in the afternoon, aside from day trips.

You roll into the house as late as 1AM, go to bed and spend the next day sleeping until noon as your body tries to recover from this ludicrous work schedule. Not only do you not get back early enough to day anything after your trip, as with many airlines, but you also lose half of the following day just recovering. I tell everyone that an rjet 4-day trip really lasts 5.5 days.

A few months back, CMH had almost exclusively this type of two-day trip and day trips that credited as low as 2:33. Nice stuff, huh? Lately, it's gotten such that many of these early report/late arrivals are spread out over 3 or 4 day trips, but that doesn't help commutability as the nature of these trips precludes butting them against each other to make a productive 5 or 6 day period to allow reasonably commutable blocks of days off....and you're gonna want at least 4 day blocks if you commute, because you'll be commuting on two of your days off.

No, outstation basing (rjet style) is not nice....even if you live in base.

Another problem is that rjet's PBS is very limited...if you get a good block of days off and FLICA needs to add more work because you haven't met the target number of hours, it will dump a low time day trip in the middle of our days off....breaking up a useful 7 day off block into 2 three day blocks instead of butting said day trip up against your days on to preserve that nice block of days off...and there isn't a thing you can do about it with rjet's limited PBS.

What you're stuck with is a schedule that precludes you from picking up trips out of open time because you'll run into a 30 in 7 problem, yet the company won't allow you to drop or swap anything because of "lack of reserve coverage" since people use sick and unavailable calls to improve schedules instead of the company allowing to be done in a normal manner, thus requiring fewer reserves. Rjet either doesn't get it or they just don't care.

I hear friends from other bases talking about how CMH crews are "no fun." Possibly, but I think it's because so many of them are just flat worn out. I developed a sleeping disorder was the result of a previous job and I've done a lot of research on this subject, and it's my belief that a very large percentage of crew members in CMH suffer from sleep disorders. Ambien is passed around by FAs like aspirin, and I've spoken to several people who have sought medical help or are considering doing so for their sleeping problems.

Rjet is a freeking circus. Stay away.

sqwkvfr

Hopefully they'll take a similar stand with any Ejet flying that they throw at us...this outstation BS is completely out of hand.

I hope that I don't sound like I'm just *****ing about this for the sake of doing so...I'm sounding this warning to the people considering coming to work here because I wish to God that someone had explained this outstation basing crap to me before I signed on....if I had realized it was gonna be like this, there's no way in hell I would have came to work for rjet.

I've heard it said that a "regional is a regional." Well, if all other things were equal, (pay, work rules, etc.) rjet would still be worse than the others because of the scourge of outstation basing.