the AK wrote:I interviewed there about 6 months ago and walked out hoping to never hear from them. They have some type of schedule but said that they would move your days off at any point if it was operationally necessary. Overtime would be payed but it was no where near enough to compensate even concert tickets. What I took from it was that they are fine with having their pilots on perpetual call. I understand that this is part of the charter job, but with fractional ownership it means that instead of just one owner who might fly his jet 200 a year they where flying 450 to 500. Flying that much when on call constantly is a nightmare especially when you factor in wait and return trips as well as the general disorganization of charter flying. You wouldn't be able to have any life and forget about a wife let alone kids. I have 2 friends who fly for Chartwright and another that flies for Air Partners, all of them were horrified when I told them what the "schedule" was. It got worse from there unfortunately, I was interviewing for a Capt spot on one of thier jets and was told that the starting pay wasn't 80 grand but 70 if you had less then 100 hours on a citation. I was sitting there listening to them justify this reduced pay and laughing to myself. They said when they dumped the PC-12's and moved those Capts over the jet it caused a bit of a stir with the jet guys because these new Capts did have any jet time so to smooth it over they agreed that flying a straight wing light jet around is so difficult that they would bump the pay down by 10 grand until the new caps had apparently proven themselves by surviving 100 hours on the jet. Here I am sitting with just under 10 000 hours, 9000 PIC, 8500 multi PIC and thinking to myself only some high level astronaut reincarnation of the red baron could possibly land a citation off an ILS onto a 6000 foot runway. I asked them what the level of experience was with the first officers. Their CP got defensive then and said that they were all excellent pilots and he would have no problem putting them in the left seat. So why then was I being interviewed for a Capt spot if he had all these guys already with the company? He then went onto talk about the 5 or 7 Airsprints values that the company has. Apparently they are on the website that I had neglected to even look at. Don't get me wrong it wasn't a total waste of an hour of my life because the secretary was well put together and the interview itself had some comedic value in that I had something to laugh about with my pilot friends for the next two weeks. I did leave with an overwhelming sense of thanks for being able to go back to my 705 cpat spot that actually has a schedule.
So where to begin... Just finishing vacation and will keep it short.
- We spend hundreds of thousands of dollars per year flying pilots on the airlines so they are home for their days off. Very rarely, someone works on one of their days off. We pay (annual salary / 2080 x 12) if that occurs.
-There is a 10% reduction from salary scale until a pilot achieves either 500 hours total jet time or 250 hours jet PIC (jet type does not matter), whichever comes first. So basically if you have never flown a jet, this will apply for 6 to 12 months.
- With the PC12 fleet, our hiring minimums were less than they are now. As such, we have a lot of highly capable pilots with under 3000 hours. We have set minimums for hour experience which is the reason for looking externally. We really would prefer to not hire direct-entry Captains and for many years we didn't. We will get back to those days but the fleet transition has made this a short term issue.
Regards,
AirSprint HR
