Originally Posted by nibake

Don't be so certain. Last year they were waving minimums and there was zero communication about it to the pilot group. You had no way of knowing unless you happened to directly communicate with someone in the training department. It was wrong to do so without notifying the pilot group, but it happened. So don't assume that it isn't happening now just because you went in for upgrade recently, unless they explicitly told you or someone you know that they needed to wait.

At any rate, there is not much keeping the company from upgrading anyone with FAA legal minimums. The FOM and the contract don't stop them from doing so. The only thing I can imagine would be that we currently don't have an approved training pathway (to my knowledge) for a direct hire upgrade, so a new hire would have to complete the standard new hire footprint and then the upgrade footprint sequentially. I'm not saying it's going to happen that way but if we think it can't, we are fooling ourselves. I would hope there is enough good old fashioned wisdom to prevent such a thing from happening... Arbitrary or not, these numbers are safe-guards which contribute to the safety of the operation. IMO time in type and then time at company are the most important, respectively. TT isn't probably going to be the determining factor ability to act as a PIC here.

Originally Posted by YerOnGuard

Cool story.

You claimed in your original post that there were currently not any requirements for time in type. This is absolutely false as it currently stands. Feel free to take wild guesses on what might happen, but I am going to answer the original question in terms of what the contract and FOM say currently.

They say, in no uncertain terms, to upgrade you must have 2500TT, 500hrs First Officer flight time with the Company, 250hrs as a Sun Country pilot in type.

Prognosticate all you want about the future, but currently, these are the minimums as they stand today.

Originally Posted by nibake

No, "they" don't. Check again. The contract doesn't have the 250 hours in type, only the FOM.

Originally Posted by nibake

No, "they" don't. Check again. The contract doesn't have the 250 hours in type, only the FOM.

Originally Posted by YerOnGuard

Ok, so either the FOM or the contract says the restrictions I quoted. Thats my point. Either the company or the union put those restrictions in place, as of right now, the restrictions are still in place until they are changed.

Originally Posted by Dick

Sweet. So it sounds like someone could easily upgrade within a year of flying at Sun Country? Are you guys seeing a lot opportunity to upgrade?


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Originally Posted by Godspeed2020

How often are there no shows for classes? And would that allow someone in a later class to move up if they want?

Originally Posted by zycho

That was a play I perfected in the past. Here you need the CBTs complete day 1. They’re sent three weeks prior so that three weeks is probably the cutoff to get bumped up.

CBTs are another topic all together OBTW. I wonder how many other airlines have you complete 40+ hours of CBTs before class, on your time, unpaid. I was gung-ho to show up with CBTs complete, flows for both CA & FOs in my head, limitations & bold items memorized….. At best I’ll have “most” CBTs complete. Managing the current job and life and completing all that proved impossible. Or requiring more self-discipline then I own.

Worst case- I end up failing and going to Mesa…..

Originally Posted by GHawk

I feel you, man. I'll be rolling in on Wednesday with roughly 70% of it done and I feel like I've been hitting it pretty hard since I got them. It feels like the "~45 hours" they mention is if you just sit there and click straight through as soon as you can. Though I do appreciate that it will probably save us a week in the classroom. It's worth mentioning though that my former regional sent us home for 10 days to do the systems CBTs while we were getting paid so that's probably the best solution.