Update on whats going on

Hey everyone, figured I would give everyone an update on whats been going on before I get really busy with training. I haven't made any posts in a really long time because frankly I haven't been doing much of anything. Ever since my last day on the ATR in Dallas I have been at home until the company decided to send me to training for my new aircraft the CRJ-700. This ended up being nearly 5 weeks. I started class on March 5^th but then they sent us home for another 2 weeks to complete the computer based training portion of the curriculum. I will return to Dallas tomorrow to start 3 weeks of ground school followed by 2 weeks of simulator training. If everything goes according to the current schedule I should be out flying the real plane sometime in early May.

I have enjoyed my time off from the job and gotten to do a few fun trips but i've discovered, or should probably say reaffirmed, just how much I love flying. To date this year I have only logged about 15 hours of flight time and I really miss it. I really cant wait to at least get into the simulator and get my hands on the controls again. Im glad to know I still have a passion for flying despite all of the negatives that come with being in the airline industry.

On that note today our management has been meeting with our unions to present what they think the pilots as well as the other labor groups at my company need to give up in order to be “competitive”. Details are still cloudy and most information is still speculation at this point so i'll wait to make any comments on the outcome of today at a later point. I would like to bring up my disgust with the CEO of another regional airline in our business. Details came out last night on how Sean Menke the CEO of Pinnacle Airlines (a regional carrier for Delta) gave himself a 59% raise while for the last couple of months has been demanding a 7% pay cut by all pilots at the airline to help the company avoid filling for CH11 bankruptcy. I just don't know how people can feel good about themselves doing something like that. Your asking a person who can barely put food on the table for their family to take a pay cut of their all ready rock bottom salaries, then decide to give yourself another 369K a year. That pay raise alone would pay for nearly 17 new hire first officers yearly salary. It amazed me how corrupt and disgusting Corporate America is.

I'll try to remember to post a few updates as I go through ground school these next 3 weeks. However i'll have many more things to post about again once I start simulator training and when im back flying the line in the new jet.

The waiting game

Hello followers and a very belated happy new year to you all. Im thankfully in the last third of what has been a very long and rough month. Im not sure if i mentioned it in my previous blog post but due to a screw up on my part when putting in bids for my schedule in January i made a mistake and ended up getting stuck with the "S1" line. This is where i have to be at the airport at 5:30AM each morning im on duty and have to sit around till 1:30PM. This is a very bad schedule for my commute since it means i either have to come down to Dallas the day before or drive through the night. The other thing thats not fun is the fact that overnights are rare when you have this schedule. I have only had 1 over night all month so that means im stuck in the crashpad pretty much every afternoon and night. To compound the bad month, i had to go through recurrent ground school and also have my sim check ride this Monday. With the way they scheduled my training i was stuck working 11 days with just 1 day off in the middle.

As im sure most everyone has seen by now they are indeed getting rid of the ATR in Dallas. The last day is supposed to be the 30th of this month. As discussed in my last blog, the displacement bid closed last night so i should "officially" find out where im going next in the days to come. Although its not official yet, i will almost certainly be retraining on a new aircraft the Bombardier CRJ-700 and I will be based out of Chicago. As it stands now this will be a very good thing for me on several levels. For starters i should be able to hold a line which means i'll have a set schedule every month and no more of this reserve stuff. Also at my company our jet aircraft have a higher pay rate for second year pilots then on the props. Also another great thing is right now i wold most likely be able to get a fair amount of OKC over nights which for me would be like a bonus night at home as i would be able to sleep in my own bed while in middle of a trip. To top it off everyone i've talked to that has flown the plane previously in their careers always talk about how great of an airplane it is to fly.

The hardest thing right now is having a lot of unknowns for the next month or so. Until they get the displacements sorted out i wont know when i will actually go to school to learn the CRJ. I also dont really know what my February schedule will be like. The company decided to basically put the entire base on reserve until you go to training. This could be an ok thing since we wont have any planes in base, the only flying they could assign us would be ferry flights for the most part. All in all it pretty much means we all get paid vacation until we start training for our new aircraft. Although i wouldn't mind a little time off im sorta hoping that i start training pretty quick in February so that i can get it over and done with well before the summer starts.

As for the company as a whole there isn't really any new news to pass along. Most everything is still speculation. There have been signs the past few days that they may keep most of the fleet intact at least for now. This would be a very good thing for all employees at the company, only time will tell. The company is required to tell the bankruptcy court on Jan 27 what it has planned for the future fleet. We should know some more concrete information on that day.

Wish i had some good stories to write about but as you can probably tell by now this month has been very dull. Im looking forward to getting Monday's check ride behind me so that i can pretty much kick back and relax until i start training for the CRJ. As more information becomes concrete over the next week or so i will most likely have another post about what the future holds. Thanks for reading and following!

Happy Holidays

Hey everyone, a late Merry Christmas to each and everyone of you. Hanging out in the crash pad this evening after completing day 4 of 5 of reserve for this span. After the first half of December was fairly slow as far as flying goes for me, the last week and a half have been very very busy. This stretch of days on started on Christmas Eve. For day 1 i proffered and was awarded a day trip with 4 legs that ended at 3:50. This was going to work out great because i was planning on driving up to my hometown where my parents still live to spend Christmas Eve night/Christmas morning with the family. Great plan but as i have found out, every time i make a good plan it gets blown apart, same thing happened this time.

After flying the first turn to Wichita Falls, crew scheduling informed me that they had extended my assignment. I now had to overnight in College Station, fly 6 legs on Christmas day, overnight in Killeen Christmas night, and fly 3 more legs on the 26th. This was a pretty hard pill to swallow. Coming into this job i knew id likely have to work my share of holidays but this one hurt since it was so last minute. However shortly after informing my family of the news they called back and told me they were packing up and were going to come stay the night in College Station with me so that we could still celebrate as a family. My entire family always has been amazing like this. Very blessed to have such a close family that cares so much for one another. We all got to College Station about 6:30 and ended up having a nice fun family Christmas Eve. My mom even brought a christmas tree for the hotel room.

Unfortunately i had a pretty early 7:00AM departure so i had to get up and head out for my 6 leg day Christmas morning. The weather all 3 days of this trip was pretty yucky. Pretty much everywhere we went had IFR conditions. The weather combined with the early start and 6 legs left us exhausted by the time we got to Killeen Christmas night. Our hotel didn't have a van driver and the normal back up taxi service wasn't operating. We ended up having to wait at the airport for about an hour before we could find a ride to the hotel. Once we got there the hunt for food began. I tried calling about every pizza place in town because i was way to tired to walk down to the only open restaurant which was applebee's. All the pizza places were closed. The captain and i (with permission from the hotel staff) ended up just raiding the breakfast kitchen in the hotel. Wasn't much but it got the job done.

Next day we just had 3 legs and were done by around noon. After finishing up i drove up to my hometown and got to spend the afternoon/evening with the family. However i got hosed over again by crew scheduling and ended up getting stuck with the 5:30AM airport standby today. That means i had to leave my house at about 2:30AM to get to the airport in time. After getting to the airport i was able to get a couple hours more of sleep in before i got called about 7:45AM to fly 4 legs. Finished this afternoon at about 4 o'clock. Tomorrow i will finally get to sleep in for the first time in about 4-5 days. All i have is a simple turn at 1PM then hopefully i'll be done. Its my last day on before my days off so i wont get any overnights. During this 5 day stretch i will have flown 5/6/3/4/2 legs. Most definitely enough to wear me clean out.

Well my pizza is here now so im going to go enjoy my dinner then probably hit the hay early. We were supposed to get an update today on the situation with the parking of my plane but no word came. Maybe next time i'll have more info. Adios!

Sinking Ship

Heard a funny yet depressing joke about the company i work for the other day. "Whats the difference between the Titanic and the comapany i work for for?... The Titanic had a band playing". Im sure most of you have seen the news stories the past couple days on changes at my company. Some of what the media is reporting is true however some is not true, at least not yet. Lets start off by talking about facts first. Then well get into the rumors.

First off on December 13 the new hire class that had started on December 5 were told to go home. The 20 members of this class are officially on furlough status and are the first official causalities of the AMR bankruptcy for my company. The next day, a "WARN" letter was sent to all ATR pilots that are based in DFW, yes this includes me unfortunately, it also includes all the captains in base as well. If you do some searching im sure you can find the letter because i know media sites have all ready posted it. To paraphrase it, it said that within 60 days there would be "employment reductions/displacements" affecting the 59 first officers and the 60 captains in DFW. The reason for this letter is because the company plans on returning the 12ATR's that operate in DFW back to the leasing companies and close down the DFW base. This is said to occur on or near Feb 13th, however a later letter from our ceo stated that this could occur as early as late January. As per our contract the company would first have to displace then furlough by seniority order.

Let me take a second and explain what a "displacement" is for the non airline folk reading this. I'll use myself as an example since i will be a part of this. When they close my base here in DFW, i will have the option to transfer to any base/any aircraft that my seniority number will hold. I plan on choosing Chicago CRJ which my seniority number can hold. I will transfer to Chicago, the person in Chicago that has a lower seniority number then me will then get "displaced" This cycle will happen likely hundred of times until it gets down to the last people whos seniority number isn't high enough to fit in any base. (presumably the newest people at the company) they will then be the ones that are actually furloughed.

The above are about the only facts we have as of now. Now lets talk about some of the nasty rumors that are floating around. Perhaps the worst one and unfortunately one of the more plausible ones is the company furloughing "out of seniority order". Obviously the above mentioned process of displacements costs the company a lot of money in retraining people to fly different types of airplanes. Spending more money is not what a company in CH11 bankruptcy wants to do. A lot of people believe that the company will ask the bankruptcy judge to ignore our contract and allow the company to furlough the DFW ATR pilots instead of allowing them to displace. This would save the company money but would be a HUGE injustice to the 119 pilots that would lose their jobs. Now for people like myself who are fairly junior at the company (i have about 500 below me on the list) this would stink, but we may end up getting furloughed later this year regardless. The people that would be getting just shafted are the captains who have been with the company for a minimum of 7 years. It would be completely unfair for them to lose their jobs while new guys hired this year were allowed to keep their jobs. The company is insisting so far that the contract will be followed but one can only wonder.... money vs morals what normally wins out in today's business world?

Sadly the above paragraph will certainly not be the only cuts coming. It has been widely spoken that the company wants to adventurly park the remainder of the ATR's (MIA, SJU bases) as well as get rid of our smaller regional jets the ERJ135/140. If the company does indeed get rid of all 3 of these aircraft types without adding new aircraft, were looking at a loss of around 120 planes. Thats a little over a third of the entire fleet. This would most likely mean up to 1200 pilots being jobless. There are numerous scenarios with how this could play out, sadly non of them paint a bright future for my company or its employees.

This has been.. how should i put it.. disheartening few days as all of this news has broken in my days off. Its an unnerving feeling  being directly in the middle of the first round of cuts. Must say that it was very refreshing to get back in the cockpit to start a 4 day trip this evening. The weather was perfect and the landing was smooth. Really helped to clear my mind of all the doom and gloom that has developed these last 3 days. It reminded me that i still love this job and there's nothing else like it. Just have to leave it up to the man up stairs to see how the early stages of my career will play out. Thankfully there are some other airlines that are currently hiring that i can use as a backup plan if it becomes necessary. I knew this industry was volatile but i honestly didn't expect to feel its bite so soon.

Cloudy Sky

Hey everyone, writing this one from the crash pad tonight. Luckily this is the first time i've spent the night here in a couple weeks and only the 4th time since the start of November. It's been a lot nicer getting to fly more and having more over nights. I'll take a comfy hotel bed over my lame bunk bed here any night.

Woke up to beautiful weather in Shreveport yesterday. We had an afternoon departure so i took advantage of that and slept in till about 11:30, i was going to get up and go for a run but that bed was way to comfy. Brought my log book with me on that overnight so that i could start getting it updated just in case i need to apply for any jobs in the near future. Quick note on all that, im sure most of you have heard the parent company of my airline filled for CH11 bankruptcy a few days ago. It's really to early to know whats going to happen other than rumors flying around the internet and cockpits. Right now all the info we've gotten from management hasn't painted a pretty picture but well all have to wait and see. I have about 500 other pilots below me on the seniority list right now which is a pretty good number unless they decide to make big time cuts. I'll keep everyone updated as i hear new information. Anyway after working on the log book for a while i showered and got ready, we had a 1:15PM hotel van and 2:05 departure time. As i was getting ready i checked the latest Dallas weather on my phone and to my surprise the weather was really bad. They were reporting 1/2 mile visibility and 300ft ceilings.  The good thing is the reported weather was better than what we needed to shoot an ILS which is normally 1/2 mile and 200ft ceilings.

It was the Captains leg since i had flown us to Shreveport the night before. We took off in beautiful clear sunny sky's and headed for Dallas. Wasn't long before you could see the cloud bank that was covering most of Texas and Oklahoma. I was pretty excited about the weather since this would be the lowest visibility and ceilings that i have flown in since being in the airlines. We got vectored around for the ILS approach to runway 17L at DFW. The weather was as advertised, submerged into the cloud deck at about 4,000ft and didn't come out till about 250ft above the ground. Its an incredible feeling to see absolutely nothing outside the wind shield then all of a sudden there's a bright lit up runway right in front of you. (here is a taste of what im talking about  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNDImUfSN8Q  " After landing we were giving a taxi route that isn't used much at DFW, takes you aroud the perimeter of the south side of the airport. The reason this was significant to me is we taxied on a specific taxiway that the old "founders plaza" was located on. As a teenager i had spent hours at that observation area watching planes taxi past in front of me. Was kinda a neat moment for me although i wished the observation area was still there(its been moved to the north side of the airport) so that i could have waived at the plane watchers as many pilots did to me years ago.

After we got to the gate i called crew scheduling and was able to get released at 3:15PM. This is what i was hoping for so that i could catch a flight home to Oklahoma for the night. Went over to the departure gate of the 5PM flight and got my boarding pass for the jump seat. Only about 10 minutes before the cut off time i see a pilot from American walk up to the counter, i knew i was screwed since they have priority for the jump seat on American flights. Yup as i expected they called my name and i have to go hand back my boarding pass, flight was oversold so there was no chance of getting a seat in the back. Had to wait till the next flight at 7PM, luckily no other jump seaters showed up for that flight and i got home to the house about 9PM. I was due back in Dallas today at around noon but its worth it to me to get home any chance i get even its only for 12 hours. I decided to drive down this morning instead of catching a flight, main reason was the fact it was supposed to rain all day in Dallas and i didn't want to have to walk to my crash pad from where the bus drops me off.

They ended up calling me in to sit airport standby at 2:30 till 10:30 tonight. Ended up being an ok day, i updated some of my manual with a new revision that came out then took a nice 2 hour nap. As i was walking to go get dinner in the terminal i got a call for a last second turn to Wichita Falls Texas. Turn was pretty non eventful, flew through a lot of rain coming and going but the clouds weren't to low. Tomorrow im on call starting at 8AM but im hoping to get released sometime in the early afternoon so that i can drive home and enjoy my single day off given to me on Monday. The way the schedules transitioned this month i had more then 6 days on straight so they have to give you a day off somewhere in between to break it up.

Thanks for reading, i know this was a pretty long entry but i figure i've been skimping on you guys the last couple of months. Hope you enjoyed the read. Until next time...

Preflight Duties

Hey everyone, i brought my laptop with me again on this trip so i figured id post a quick blog. Im currently at our overnight hotel in Shreveport LA. Today's my first day out of  4 on. Commuted down to DFW on the 1:35PM flight then did a turn to Wichita Falls TX then came to the overnight here in Shreveport.

A while ago i said i would post about my routine leading up to a flight so here it goes. I normally show up at our departure gate about 40 minutes before scheduled departure time. This is a fair amount earlier then a lot of other First Officers at my company, but most of the time im just sitting around somewhere in the airport and i would rather sit around in the plane and get things done without having to rush through stuff. Once i get down to the plane i get my bags put away then head outside to do the pre flight inspection. The exterior pre flight really isn't much different then doing a pre flight on a Cessna or Piper (small trainers) its just on  a larger scale. The main object is to detect any obvious damage or missing parts. This normally doesn't take anymore than 3-5minutes. Once back inside i'll head back up to the cockpit and get my stuff situated, including pulling out my chart books hooking up my headset etc. Next i'll go about performing the tests that are required inside, most flights this is only a couple test buttons, however if its the "first flight of the day" for that aircraft the list is far more extensive and takes several minutes to work through, these are commonly called the "origination checks". Next its my job to set up the ACARS on the aircraft, this is an onboard computer that keeps track of the flight and allows us to communicate by text with our dispatch and operations. At most of the larger airports we can also pick up our IFR clearance and print out the weather through this system. I normally get all this finished by about 20 minutes before departure. This is normally about the time our Captains show up with the release/flight plan. I'll then thumb through the paperwork making sure everything matches up and looks normal. After that my duties are done until departure time, i'll usually kill the time by browsing the internet on my phone or shooting the bull with the Captain. Things get much busier right at departure time, multiple things start happening all at once and it takes some time getting used to. After, or sometimes during, our  before start checklists the flight attendant will call us and give us the headcount for our weight and balance, then the ramp agents will hand us the load sheet with the number and types of bags in each department. Its my job to calculate the actual weights in each compartment. Then i have to check the weights i calculated and the headcount i received against the "closeout" sheet we received through ACARS from operations. All of those things happen and have to be accomplished in about a 2 minute window. Its not bad once you get used to it but for new FO's its certainly a bit overwhelming. Once all of that is checked were ready to go. Doing this a few times a day isn't bad but on the days where we have to do 6 legs in one day it can really wear ya out by the end of the day.

Thanks for reading and i still hope to update this blog more often, but i haven't been carrying my laptop with me much anymore since it adds an extra 12 pounds to my bag and also adds an extra hassle while going through airport security, regardless i'll try my best.

Im Back

Hey everyone, after being away from the blog for a long time im back and intend to get back to regular posting. Part of the reason for not writing in so long is the fact that things got really slow in September, i only flew about 8 hours all month so really didn't have to much to write about. Since my last post i have now transferred bases and i am now based at DFW (Dallas Ft. Worth). For those that know me you know that i am now much closer to my home in Oklahoma. I know can jump on a flight and be to work in 45min instead of having to get on two different flights for about 5 and a half hours to get to Miami. The shorter commute allows me to "commute" the day of and gets me home the last day almost guaranteed. This means at least an extra night at home each time im off. The other nice thing is the fact that i can make it home just about any night i want if i start missing my own bed to much. This month i have been on S3 which if you remember is the "airport ready reserve" from 130PM to 930PM, however next month will be my first month holding a RAP line, which mean i will be able to get open trips the day before. Even though i've been on ready reserve this month i have flown a lot more than in Miami, im currently at about 25 hours for the month which while still far below what line holders fly its better than the 8-10 hours a month i've been averaging.

Besides having a much shorter commute i am also liking Dallas for several other reasons. The first is the fact that its sorta my "home" airport. Growing up as a kid it was always the airport my family would use whenever we traveled by air. I also visited it rather frequently to watch planes and take photos with my friend who was also an aviation nerd like myself. Since i've spent so much time here growing up i know the airport very well and the surrounding area. Also since i've spent almost my entire life growing up in Oklahoma/TX area i feel much more at home with the culture here, anyone who has spent time in Miami will know what im talking about here. I would say the only negative of my transfer would be our destinations, in Miami i flew to a lot of the Caribbean, out of DFW we fly to Lawton, Wichita Falls, Killeen, Waco, Long View, Tyler, San Angelo, College Station, Shreveport, Monroe, Ft Smith, and Joplin... Needless to say not the most interesting destinations in the world.

Looking forward to writing again and have several topics i'll be covering in the next few days so be looking for new posts.