New hire thoughts

[Crewbunk]

LOL... keep on adding ît in... IOETC... and he teaches ART... and he does max VO... there are very few doing $295K - the amount you said - as a 10 year anything at this company.

Adding nothing. He is an IOETC, no he doesn’t teach ART and never does VO. IOETCs are run pretty ragged as it is, his time is his own. He does accept drafts, but only as a draft and drop.

I’m guessing from your diatribe you have no idea how much IOETCs make. It can be very lucrative. Looking at Globe I see he averages about 95-100 credit hours a month, but by dropping the draft credits, he is flying about 16-17 days a month, plus recurrent training. Again, not a bad gig if you like teaching.

But …. as I said above, this position is available to anyone. As you have a little more control over your schedule, it usually goes to junior captains. However, it can be a grind. One has to be qualified in both seats, so all simulator exercises are basically doubled.

[Sharklasers]

LOL... keep on adding ît in... IOETC... and he teaches ART... and he does max VO... there are very few doing $295K - the amount you said - as a 10 year anything at this company.

Adding nothing. He is an IOETC, no he doesn’t teach ART and never does VO. IOETCs are run pretty ragged as it is, his time is his own. He does accept drafts, but only as a draft and drop.

I’m guessing from your diatribe you have no idea how much IOETCs make. It can be very lucrative. Looking at Globe I see he averages about 95-100 credit hours a month, but by dropping the draft credits, he is flying about 16-17 days a month, plus recurrent training. Again, not a bad gig if you like teaching.

But …. as I said above, this position is available to anyone. As you have a little more control over your schedule, it usually goes to junior captains. However, it can be a grind. One has to be qualified in both seats, so all simulator exercises are basically doubled.

IOETCs can’t preselect flying like checkers can. It give you no additional control of your sked.

[Crewbunk]

IOETCs can’t preselect flying like checkers can. It give you no additional control of your sked.

That’s correct. All training is assigned (to both the instructor and the student) by the training department, to fit with their agenda. The assigned flying (to the IOETC) must fit within a framework of bid granted days off. (Similar to reserve, but stricter).

There are however several pairings pulled from the package to be used for training, before regular pilot bidding/awarding starts. By definition, these pairings are usually more efficient, affording IOETCs a better schedule. I should mention, that was the intent, but in reality, they are using these higher time pairings to get more “use” out of the IOETCs.

Also, some pairings are built after the month starts, with training in mind. Often they are “draftable” and are not open (or even easily viewable) to regular pilots.

[TFTMB heavy]

Agreed Personally, I am rooting for Porter. But, the economics of the E2 does not lend to a low cost carrier. Presently, they are competing with price even though I admire the on-board product.

Would you expand on that?

From what I've experienced they've got the product, they've got the pricing and hopefully, soon they'll have more routing.

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The E2 has about 5% lower operating costs than a 737 Max8 with about 57 (43%) fewer seats. On top of that, Porter offers free food, alcohol, and WiFi. It's a great product to compete with a premium economy product at AC or Westjet but right now they're matching ULCC fare levels and not a premium economy fare. They are also one of the only E2 operators in NA so spare parts pools for AOG aircraft are sparse and harder to get, plus the fleet size is too small for the next couple of years for economy of scale or route density for recovery of IROPS.

It doesn't take a lot of complicated math if your CASM is 50% higher than a ULCC and you're matching fares that you're losing money. They can keep it up for a while to stimulate demand for their product but eventually, they're going to have to raise fares in a very competitive environment in order to have any sort of positive yield.

You can't compete with a ULCC using an E2, so you need to compete vs Westjet and AC, both of whom can fare match on Porter's routes and have existing loyalty plans that make them more attractive to frequent fliers. Porter's product is quite nice, but how they become profitable with it is a challenge.

I suspect Porter is matching some of Flair fares to attract some of the typical passengers Flair is going after with the ULCC model, fill the plane and take some away from other carriers. Porter is surely not selling all of their seats at those low fares and probably don't have a hard time selling for a bit more than Flair with their business travellers.

As for dealing with IROPS, it's clear that operating 737s doesn't make it any easier with the performance some carriers have displayed the past winter season. The key to IROPS is spare planes and pilots, not necessarily spare parts.

[Stu Pidasso]

That’s correct. All training is assigned (to both the instructor and the student) by the training department, to fit with their agenda

Crewbunk, you have your facts completely wrong. IOETC Captains bid their block just as a Line Captain does, in seniority (or what's left of it around this place.)

Then the Training Department matches students to fly with them. They get a measly 12% pay uplift, only when they are instructing, which is a joke.

The amount of work put in by the good Training Captains would shock you. Not to mention putting up with the Hard Landings, particularly now that we are at such a low experience intake.

You do not do double the sims, not sure where you would have ever heard that gem.

[Crewbunk]

Stu, I know exactly how being an IOETC works, I did the job for 14 years, ending last year. (And declining the usual offer of the Check Department).

What you say is generally true, but ….

The start of the month training is done using pairings taken out of the stack before pilots bid. This is so Training can keep planning, sometimes hard due to late block awards. Then, the schedule is re-arranged using pairings awarded to IOETCs. So a pairing may be assigned to a particular IOETC at the start of the month, it may not be the one who flies it. But you are correct, it remains a training pairing.

As I said, training pairings are often built from new flying, “improved”, then put in the training pile.

12%? You are preaching to the choir. But the guys that do it, love it. As you work closely with the Training Department, moving flying around, you do realize a bit more control over your schedule.

Double the sims? To maintain your currency on the type, you must complete most event sets from both seats. Sometimes it can be done at once, sometimes not.