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Old 23rd Feb 2006, 17:16
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Shrike200
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
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Yeah, that jet rumour does the rounds every so often - I wouldn't lose sleep over it!

The company itself is quite well organised (as far as any contract company is), and they are run in a professional manner. They do have some picky clients, as mentioned, and they have managed to hold onto them. One of two issues I could complain about was that the salary was below average, and combined with paying for your own rating (a little tough to swallow for an ATR or even a 1900), made it slightly irritating. It always amused me when they lost pilots out to other companies and seemed to be all confused as to why! Being just another pilot though, I obviously didn't have the full picture as to what was going on back home.

You could certainly do far worse, I'm sure. My second issue: I felt it would have been a real 'pilots' company if they had presented a clear career path; C208 -> B1900 -> ATR, then who knows, a DHL jet maybe, if they could have gotten that one right which they didn't. They would hold onto a lot more guys, keeping valuable contract experience in the company. In any case, they seem to choose to compartmentalise the different pools, and they only way you step between them is to shell out the cash, no discounts for any amount of time served. They did introduce some sort of incentive to staying with them for a certain (long) period of time, but it was dependant on you staying in one pool and not moving on, which showed a lack of interest in their pilots careers. In any case, it was a laughably small incentive, and ultimately made no difference that I was ever aware of. I know companies aren't required to care about their pilots careers, but it is nice if a company pays more than lip service to that aspect!

Nonetheless, they are nice to work for. I'm being so picky, perhaps only because they came so close to being a really great company to work for - they had all the pieces in place, they just didn't put them together, for whatever reason. Probably money, it usually is!

My 2c...if you get work with them, go for it - they seem to be here to stay.
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