[hiaviation]

I have an interview Great Lakes the last week of May and I heard it's the bottom of the barrel regional to work for. Is this even remotely true? The pay is terrible, but once you upgrade to captain, Starbucks is possible at least once a week.

Thanks.

[HoodRich]

Hey:

At this point, the way thing are going with the regionals, take what you an get to get your foot in the door. If you read my last post you will see the position that I am in right now. If flying is truly your passion and someone is paying you to do it....can it really be that bad?!

[Steve428]

The answer is no, it's not that bad. I've been there less than a year, and get 15 days off, do all 4 day trips or less, and can get pretty much any schedule I want. It is a true "regional" airline. It feeds people to Denver, St. Louis, Kansas City, Phoenix, Albuquerque, or Milwaukee, via established EAS routes. Crew domiciles are Denver and St. Louis, with St. Louis being the junior base. Albuquerque and Milwaukee are monthly TDY bases, meaning you get continuous per diem if you pick up those lines. You can upgrade right at 1500 hours, if you so desire. If you come in with 1500, I believe you are able to upgrade after 3 months. We do some awesome flying, including many mountain cities, to include Telluride. We also do Page, AR, right around the Grand Canyon and Lake Powell. Washout rates are very high for initial training. It's been as high as 50-70% lately. This is mostly due to the fact that people are thrown into the sim, who came into training w/ poor instrument skills, and low flight time. If your scan is not up to par, and your instrument skills top-notch, you most likely won't make it through training. As far as flying the line goes. There is no autopilot in the Beech. This means you will hand fly everything. Your success on the line is all about pitch, power, trim, procedures, and instrument scan. It's all VOR to VOR, or NDB. You will shoot NDB approaches down to mins on the line, with an airplane packed full of people. You will hand-fly non-precision circling approaches into airports surrounded by terrain, with contaminated runways and crosswinds pushing the limits of what is legal, all while packing on the ice. You will wake up at 2:00 a.m. mountain-time in Hayes or Garden City to get people to Kansas City for early connections, and then be expected to put in a 14 hour duty day, and fly another 6-7 hours. You will fly 7-9 legs per day. These are the extremes of what you will see, but if you can't handle the extremes, you won't make it here. Normal day-to-day flying normally doesn't involve these extremes. You will normally fly 5-6 hours/ day in great weather, 25-30 hours per week, 4-6 legs per day, and 70-100 hours per month. Lakers are known for being some of the best pilots out there, because they have to be. Success on the line depends on it. Some people get down on Lakers, because they are part of an airline who provides the lowest wages in the industry. My response to that is to say that Lakes is a true regional airline. We actually provide regional service, the way a regional airline was intended to work. We don't call ourselves a regional airline, but actually fly 70+ seat RJs hub to hub, sucking up routes that used to be covered by DC-9s, or 737s, and doing it all for half the pay. We don't do that. Is it Lakes bringing down industry pay, or the so-called "regional" RJ drivers who fly mainline routes? We don't fly 70+ seat RJs. We fly glorified single-pilot King Airs. Our pay isn't that low, when compared to other 1900 operators, but I have to admit that it should be higher. You come here to get your PIC-Turbine time and get the hell out, all while flying with the best pilot group out there, and having a blast. You don't come here to make a career of it. There ya go. Hope that helps.

This post has been edited by Steve428: 28 June 2008 - 04:06 PM

[G8keeper]

The answer is no, it's not that bad. I've been there less than a year, and get 15 days off, do all 4 day trips or less, and can get pretty much any schedule I want. It is a true "regional" airline. It feeds people to Denver, St. Louis, Kansas City, Phoenix, Albuquerque, or Milwaukee, via established EAS routes. Crew domiciles are Denver and St. Louis, with St. Louis being the junior base. Albuquerque and Milwaukee are monthly TDY bases, meaning you get continuous per diem if you pick up those lines. You can upgrade right at 1500 hours, if you so desire. If you come in with 1500, I believe you are able to upgrade after 3 months. We do some awesome flying, including many mountain cities, to include Telluride. We also do Page, AR, right around the Grand Canyon and Lake Powell. Washout rates are very high for initial training. It's been as high as 50-70% lately. This is mostly due to the fact that people are thrown into the sim, who came into training w/ poor instrument skills, and low flight time. If your scan is not up to par, and your instrument skills top-notch, you most likely won't make it through training. As far as flying the line goes. There is no autopilot in the Beech. This means you will hand fly everything. Your success on the line is all about pitch, power, trim, procedures, and instrument scan. It's all VOR to VOR, or NDB. You will shoot NDB approaches down to mins on the line, with an airplane packed full of people. You will hand-fly non-precision circling approaches into airports surrounded by terrain, with contaminated runways and crosswinds pushing the limits of what is legal, all while packing on the ice. You will wake up at 2:00 a.m. mountain-time in Hayes or Garden City to get people to Kansas City for early connections, and then be expected to put in a 14 hour duty day, and fly another 6-7 hours. You will fly 7-9 legs per day. These are the extremes of what you will see, but if you can't handle the extremes, you won't make it here. Normal day-to-day flying normally doesn't involve these extremes. You will normally fly 5-6 hours/ day in great weather, 25-30 hours per week, 4-6 legs per day, and 70-100 hours per month. Lakers are known for being some of the best pilots out there, because they have to be. Success on the line depends on it. Some people get down on Lakers, because they are part of an airline who provides the lowest wages in the industry. My response to that is to say that Lakes is a true regional airline. We actually provide regional service, the way a regional airline was intended to work. We don't call ourselves a regional airline, but actually fly 70+ seat RJs hub to hub, sucking up routes that used to be covered by DC-9s, or 737s, and doing it all for half the pay. We don't do that. Is it Lakes bringing down industry pay, or the so-called "regional" RJ drivers who fly mainline routes? We don't fly 70+ seat RJs. We fly glorified single-pilot King Airs. Our pay isn't that low, when compared to other 1900 operators, but I have to admit that it should be higher. You come here to get your PIC-Turbine time and get the hell out, all while flying with the best pilot group out there, and having a blast. You don't come here to make a career of it. There ya go. Hope that helps.

Thank you for that run down! It sounds like a true challenge to me. My App is in.

[421]

Wow. sounds like a lawsuit about to happen. Must be freaken crazy to want work that bad. Sounds kinda like Fright Express down in FL. Hope you "graduate" soon.

[Steve428]

Wow. sounds like a lawsuit about to happen. Must be freaken crazy to want work that bad. Sounds kinda like Fright Express down in FL. Hope you "graduate" soon.

We don't do anything illegal. It's rare that we ever even push the legal limits. Even pushing the limits leaves plenty of margin for error. It's a highly regulated Part 121 environment. If one isn't prepared to fly hard IFR, it can seem extreme. But, it's really just standard IFR flying in a mountain environment. There's no reason to be afraid of it, or avoid it. There is nothing inherently dangerous about it, if the pilots are trained to operate in that environment. It does present it's challenges, at times, though...