Originally Posted by
boofhead
BTW I know of no company in Alaska that does what we do. Some do on demand in between scheduled flights, but that is not the same and I am sure you know that.
No, there's nobody in Alaska who does *exactly* what your outfit does, but just as a single example, the medevac companies are pretty much un-scheduled on demand with their pilots on call. And guess what? Their pilots are not permanently on call, they have reserve schedules. they have time off. They have days they can call their own. That's just one example, there are other flight operations, in and out of Alaska whose operations are for the most part, on-demand with pilots on call; corporate flight departments, ad-hoc freight haulers, etc. Some have reserve schedules, some do not. I would venture to say that the ones who, like you, expect their few pilots to be perpetually on call, also like you, have a hard time attracting pilots in today's market. Never having a day you can call your own, except in retrospect, is a miserable way to live.
Originally Posted by
boofhead
You seem to not get it: there are no pilots out there. Even if I wanted to do as you say, there is no evidence that the pilots want it that way; they all want to make money and they won't make money sitting at home. There are no qualified pilots coming in my door or contacting me for a full time job. I am on several job boards with ads in the system and only once in a while do I get any pilots who live in Alaska or are willing to move here, much less have the quals I need.
You have a pretty serious disconnect going here. You have never offered a competitive salary with a livable schedule, yet somehow you *know* that even if you did offer that, there still would be no pilots, applying. Most people can see the obvious logic flaw in that.
This is probably a waste of my time here, but I can explain why you're not getting applications. You see, even though you don't publish salaries and the details of your employment conditions, you're fooling yourself if you think it's some sort of secret. You see, when a pilot sees an ad for pilots from "Boofhead's Premium Air Taxi Service" they either are already familiar with your terms and conditions, from having known pilots who have worked there, or by word of mouth, or they ask around, and the answer comes back: "Yeah, they don't pay much and they expect you to be available to the company with no time off. " So most pilots say, "umm, no thanks" and don't apply.