Perimeter Medevac

[Spirit]

Any info on this gig? Pay, schedule, bond, bases?

TY!

[dttlp9]

Perimeters Medevac Operation is probably the best department to work in at perimeter. You do your own thing away from Winnipeg and all the drama. Nice group of pilots. FO pay is around 41k plus about 7k in per diems. Captain pay around 96k plus about 7k per diems. Schedule is good if you like 7d on 7d off. Rolling duty day takes a bit to get used to. If you're looking to move on in the industry fast try to find something else as medevac is fairly slow depending on base. Expect to average between 20 to 30hrs per rotation if everything is normal. However recently it's been more like 10 to 20hrs per rotation.

Cheers

[up on one]

Week on week off
Bases are YCR, YIV, YTHx2, YOH, YWG.
1 yr promissory note not sure on the figure, heard around 10k
F/O 41,300 + lunch money
Capt 94,200 + lunch money
Flight passes with various operators
Some in the past have commuted from Ottawa and Toronto areas but if you're late for work because of this it will not go over well.

Contract has been under negotiation for 2 years and sounds like we are close to finalizing our new agreement so these figures could change.

[contactapproved]

94200/yr is starting??? Thats not too shabby. Are all bases rotational or are you based permanently in Thompson/Winnipeg? Are you always assigned to the same base with same crew? Just out of curiosity, what do the Dash 8 captains start at for pay?

[dttlp9]

Yeah there is no payscale for medevac. You start and end at those numbers.
You bid on the base you are interested in and the person with the highest seniority gets it. You can get bumped if somebody with higher seniority bids on it after you got a base but only during the first 2 rotations. After that the base is yours. So normally you are with the same crew.
Every rotation of every base starts and ends in YWG. If your plane is in YWG you take it and reposition to base. If not you get shipped out on a sked. (sometimes literally)
Dash Captains start at 68,667/y. After 10 years it's 104,706/y

[Spirit]

Thanks for the info!

[digits_]

Rolling duty day takes a bit to get used to

What's a rolling duty day?

[up on one]

It's means you are perpetually fresh.

Say you get a call for a trip at 8am. After this trip is complete and you get back to your assigned base at 1pm you will duty at 11pm unless you sit at base for 9hrs. So if in the case you don't get another call before 10 pm then you are considered fresh and rested for another 15 hrs. You are literally on call 24/7 and are expected to manage your fatigue.

[contactapproved]

I've heard some not so great things about Perimeter lately. Are pilots generally happy on the medevac side of things? Im the type that when I head north I don't like to hear from the bosses office unless something has seriously gone wrong. Do they let you be and leave it up to you and dispatch to figure things out, or are they on your case for declining a trip for weather and stuff like that?

[Black_Tusk]

It's means you are perpetually fresh.

Say you get a call for a trip at 8am. After this trip is complete and you get back to your assigned base at 1pm you will duty at 11pm unless you sit at base for 9hrs. So if in the case you don't get another call before 10 pm then you are considered fresh and rested for another 15 hrs. You are literally on call 24/7 and are expected to manage your fatigue.

Is that even legal?

[dttlp9]

From my experience Pilots are GENERALLY unhappy.
At perimeter it depends on what you're looking for. Do you want a good work atmosphere and work relationship, not just with pilots but also with dispatch and other departments? Stay away as far as possible, it sucks!
But if you just wanna go to work, without having to be friends with everybody, work 16 days a month and make 100k for flying 703/704, with flight benefits on 20 or so airlines, for you and your family, and even more airlines for jumpseat agreements, Perimeter is a pretty good place to work for. I have yet to find an operator that pays like Perimeter for flying 703/704. Heck Q400 Pilots make less. Does Perimeter think they are overpaying the Pilots? Oh yeah and they say it, but it doesn't matter as they have a decent contract. Negotiations for even better pay seem to advance as well.
Most unhappy people are those that worked there back in the day when it was still great. But as I said, if you're not there to be friends with them or spend your free time at work it's just fine. Flying the Metro is fun and getting almost twice as much money as the rest of the industry in it's league is pretty darn sweet.
Management putting pressure on the pilots? It happens but it's rare. On medevacs you do your own thing. If you decline a trip dispatch will sometimes try to get another crew on it who usually give them the same answer. If they want to take it further, one phone call to the Chief Pilots fixes that problem. If its unsafe you don't go and that's the end of the story.

[dttlp9]

It's means you are perpetually fresh.

Say you get a call for a trip at 8am. After this trip is complete and you get back to your assigned base at 1pm you will duty at 11pm unless you sit at base for 9hrs. So if in the case you don't get another call before 10 pm then you are considered fresh and rested for another 15 hrs. You are literally on call 24/7 and are expected to manage your fatigue.

Is that even legal?

At Perimeter it is. They got a special permission from TC. But the deal is that pilots can call in fatigued at any point without questions being asked.
Sometimes they get asked anyways and there is forms to be filled out but usually they are fairly understanding.

[North Shore]

If you decline a trip dispatch will sometimes try to get another crew on it who usually give them the same answer. If its unsafe you don't go and that's the end of the story.

I know a guy who was killed because of that. Johnny-on-the-spot turned down the trip because of poor wx, boss phoned another guy, didn't tell him about the wx call, and buddy, wanting to be a good company guy, flew off into the sunset...

[dttlp9]

If you decline a trip dispatch will sometimes try to get another crew on it who usually give them the same answer. If its unsafe you don't go and that's the end of the story.

I know a guy who was killed because of that. Johnny-on-the-spot turned down the trip because of poor wx, boss phoned another guy, didn't tell him about the wx call, and buddy, wanting to be a good company guy, flew off into the sunset...

I agree it's a very bad practice to pull stuff like that. However nobody would ever be able to blame people from dispatch for that. They hardly know the difference between rain and snow and just try to suck up to their bosses. All TC sees is, a pilot stepped into a plane without checking the weather = bad pilot decision making = pilot error on the TSB report.

[dttlp9]

Well maybe I'm too easy on them. But for me it worked out well.
Get in, get experience, get money, get out.

[goingnowherefast]

If you've got the experience to be a medivac captain, you've also got the experience to work at a place that isn't described as "get in, get experience, get money, get out"

[NobodyCares]

Couldn't have said it better...

If you've got the experience to be a medivac captain, you've also got the experience to work at a place that isn't described as "get in, get experience, get money, get out"

[North Shore]

Sure, but then you take the 60% paycut to move to a 'big' regional... $100k/yr in the 'Peg goes a long way...

[goingnowherefast]

I didn't mean a regional. If you have 2000 hours and an ATPL, this is your job market. You can be picky.

[bobcaygeon]

If you decline a trip dispatch will sometimes try to get another crew on it who usually give them the same answer. If its unsafe you don't go and that's the end of the story.

I know a guy who was killed because of that. Johnny-on-the-spot turned down the trip because of poor wx, boss phoned another guy, didn't tell him about the wx call, and buddy, wanting to be a good company guy, flew off into the sunset...

I've watched Jazz do the exact same thing. We were all in the same crew room so it was kinda funny to watch dispatch call and ask for a different captain and listen to him/her say no and then hang up and then have the phone ring again with dispatch asking for another captain.