10 and 5 things...
AAI Ops: I too was former Air Atlanta and ended up quitting, not fired. I didn't quit for another flying job but rather a non-flying job, a testament to how much I didn't want to be there. I too tried to change things for the better in the hopes I could keep flying there, at least until I was recalled at my airline. After 18 months of things not only not changing for the better at AAI but actually getting worse I declined yet another base move at your behest and opted to pursue another line of work. I won't give my name in open forum here but you can contact your friend Jerry O' Sullivan, he knows my handle and real name. He confronted me after I posted a negative remark on the forum accusing him of lying, I answered him with my real name.
5 Good Things:
1) Breakfast is paid for by Air Atlanta when staying in a hotel
2) Training and PCs are straightforward with no BS. I realize this is a double edge sword however and some pilots who otherwise would not pass the training end up getting through. But overall the training is fine.
3) I'm still in contact with some of the friends I made while at Air Atlanta, good friends. We were all in the same sinking boat together which made the friendships that much tighter.
4) Air Atlanta paid for travel between base and home. Granted it was like pulling teeth getting the "vacation" in the first place, but once the decision was made to grant vacation Air Atlanta took care of the expenses.
5) At the time it was very difficult and I didn't want to be there but flying with Air Atlanta allowed me to see areas of the world I would never have otherwise been able to go to. Now keep in mind I kept my head pretty low in some of these places as most of the natives wanted to kill Westerners but nevertheless it was good flying experience. The Excell flying out of the UK to the Caribbean was especially rewarding.
10 Bad Things:
1) AAI needs to instruct it's contact company Mountain High...or Direct Personel...or whatever it's called these days to tell the truth when hiring pilots. I originally took the job with certain things in mind and would NEVER have taken the jobs had I known certain things were the actuallity (see items 2-10 below). If you guys were truthful from the get-go you would almost certainly have fewer takers but the pilots who did sign a contact would go in with their eyes open rather than being blindsided by some of the shenanigans taking place. In other words, Stop Lying To Prospective Pilots About The Realities Of The Job!!
2) The time away from home is quite simply too long. Even the worst companies in the US keep their crews on the road only up to a month or so. Before I left AAI I managed to get a new contract stating I would be guaranteed 2 weeks off in a row at home for every 6 weeks I was on the road. But this was after a year of never really knowing when I would get home. The only way to get time at home was to simply say, "I'm going home". Every request for "vacation" was turned down. Requests didn't work, only statements of what I was going to do.
3) Stop calling it "Vacation". It's time at home not vacation. When you don't pay for the time it's not vacation. Reference item #2, whenever I had too much and said I was going home it was off salary. The end result was I couldn't go home but once every 2 months or so or the salary I did receive wasn't enough to pay the bills. It's hard thing to have to choose between seeing your family or staying in some dirty smelly nasty place in the world to pay for said family.
4) In general you guys have to realize that the pilots are in fact human beings who have lives and families. The minute you realize that, things instantly improve for the pilots who remain at Air Atlanta. If you cared as much about the real people working for you as you do the cash you recieve from your clients the moral would improve and pilots would stay certainly longer and maybe for good. Even if you as a human being don't actually mean it, if your policies indicated you cared about us we would stay there. Stop treating pilots like one of the airplanes and start treating them as real people with lives and families!!
5) The contract companies who hire for you need to be under tighter control. They need accountability for their actions. When the office screws up your pay and then shrugs and says, "There's nothing I can do" how about some accountability? My pay was massively messed up on at least 3 occasions. Each time Air Atlanta pointed the finger at JO's office. Each time JO's office practicaly laughed in my face at my plight. Don't you dare shrug your shoulders and say it's their fault. You know as well as I do that that company is AAI's company.
6) When ordering a pilot to change bases, how about paying for his excess baggage? You know we are packed for months on the road, when you then buy us a ticket on the cheapest carrier to move us to the new base we are often hit with big charges for our bags. If the base move is at your behest it's only fair to pay for our stuff as it's you who mandate being on the road for such a long time in the first place.
7) A greater ratio of time home/time at work. Again reference item #4, unless you want to pay for our entire families to come to where we are in the world there needs to be more time at home. This item might be better in the #1 position as it was always of prime import to myself. I'd have been much much more willing to go to these places for AAI had I had recent time with the family. The recently submitted post by you of a proposal by the company for more time at home is still a joke. Why can't you get it through your head that only 1 week at home after 6 weeks on the road is simply not enough? It's not enough, it's not enough, it's not enough! As soon as you realize that fact WILL NOT CHANGE, then and only then can AAI start bringing realistic proposals to the pilots. So you have to pay more (paying for "vacation" time for example"? You'll be more inline with other companies out there.
8) Your contract company needs to be a little more selective about who it hires. Certainly I flew with some top-notch pilots, but at the same time I flew with some guys who had no business whatsoever being in the cockpit. If you actually hire some of these 1,000 hour pilots that have been sniffing around this message board (Oh God, have you already?) you are setting yourself up for big problems. I was hired via an email, no interview, no sim check, just an email with travel arrangements to LHR. You can't tell me that's the way to hire quality pilots.
9) Rosters are not worth the paper they are printed on. I realize ACMI is a business where it helps to be ready for the changes. But again referencing item #4 we needed at least a minimum of stability. If you want us to work on hard days off you need to realize a need for premium pay to compensate for the disruption. And you need to ask, not order a change when a day off is involved. You would be surprised at how far a little niceness goes.
10) Upgrades should not be held above an FO's head to get him to stick around. A command is a great thing and many of your pilots are sticking around because they were promised an upgrade. It's very transparent how AAI states command will be on such-and-such a date and then recinds it or delays it time and time again in order to keep someone around.
Overall I would say that AAI doesn't have a chance of staying in business unless it drastically and quickly changes it's ways. I stick by my statement of "AAI has a lot coming to it". AAI needs to own up to it's past and change it's ways if it has even a small chance of continuing in business. Please don't take this as a threat, I don't have a dog in this hunt anymore. It's a simple observation from personal experience. Don't go storming off all mad with a shrug and thoughts of yet another disgruntled pilot. Had I not had good intentions I would continue to warn pilots away from AAI and not try to give you an honest appraisal of the situation that is apparent to all the pilots but up till now not to the management of AAI. It's a tough thing for someone to tell you to your face that you've been bad and you need to change. Be adults about this, take this in the spirit it was given.
Regards,