Sneedro

👋 @Homestar I am not beyond my military flying days. Living the life in the airline world now and doing a CAP reserve job to get through my final 3.5 years! This brings back memories!

I for the life of me can't seem to figure out why the AF is having a retention problem... Oh, and I agree, I would make this my new full time job until it is resolved.

🥃

My comment was mostly in jest. I will never speak bad about living in base no matter where it is...hell I live in NJ so I am in base in NY but it's not the most financially sound decision 😂 I do get to live in base though for airline and reserve gig so that's a double plus. February I won't spend a single night in a hotel! It's kind of a ball buster month but the family loves it. What other job can you live anywhere in the world and be provided free transportation (well almost free) to work?!

Agree!! Atlanta sucks and I try to even fly through that place. So far not successful avoiding it for training but maybe one day 🤣

🍺 a toast

As soon as we find someone who loves Spirit or Frontier we will discuss it. Until then...

For those who have been through a not so easy divorce, have you, and if so how, had the other party get mad and say to pack you stuff and leave the house? While I have read never to do this, how have you handled them then threatening to call the police, say you are/were being abusive, and saying they will be calling your job to get you fired? Obviously staying in the house is best but what happens when it may no longer be safe/smart for you to do so? Some states won't grant a restraining order or anything like that without threat of physical violence so they can threaten this sort of stuff all they want and it won't qualify. I see it as a fine line between protecting you share of the house and stuff, but also protecting yourself from charges that could severely hurt your professional life.

Do what you need to do. You are talking 5 days so it isn't that big of a deal. Your unit should understand that you need to get through INDOC and training first ( I am guessing there are quite a few airline pilots in the unit so they understand the process). Let that be your focus. Then you can either finish IOE and then drop the days you need or work with your IOE scheduler to coordinate a few days. No need to wait until off probation but don't try and cheat the system.

Aside from the pic itself...I think the Twitter handle name is just as funny. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

I fly Pilots N Paws missions as well but in the northeast. I saw this trip when I was looking around for something when I had availability. So badly wished I had been in the midwest to help out on that one. Cant say enough good things about PnP for those looking for a mission in recreational flying. 🥃 to you for helping on that one!

I fly a Piper Lance in my free time. I love it. While flying at the airlines is a great job, there's nothing like getting and going WHEN and WHERE I want. Take the scenic route or take the quickest path? Fly around NYC or take the Hudson corridor? These options don't exist at my airline but in GA I can do whatever I want. I can load the plane to the gills and fly for an hour or two or I can fly across the country if I want. Recently put 5 grown adults in the plane with luggage and flew to the Finger Lakes in NY for a weekend. Couldn't have done that without a couple hours in the car. This way it was an hour in the plane and those who have never flown small GA got to experience it. One thing I notice about the airlines, is a lot of the time I miss having no schedule nor a stack of rules to adhere too while flying. Kick the tires and light the fire and we are off! Of course not everyone is the same and hate the thought of an airplane after work. *also, I have yet to be re-routed flying GA so that's a plus!

My state requires auto insurance to cover you in an accident so you cannot use personal insurance. It was a major PITA because finding medical places aside from an ER was very difficult. As soon as we said "car accident" we would get the sorry can't help you we don't deal with car accidents. Speaking to our primary care doctor he said it's like that because car insurance companies are such a nightmare to deal with that most places just refuse to. My employer insurance has not stepped in yet and covered anything. Apparently there are some steps maybe for that to happen though I am not exactly sure what yet... Our lawyer has basically handled all care and will deal with the money side after the lawsuit. A no-fault state is terrible if you are injured in a car accident and USAA has be beyond atrocious.

We dropped USAA insurance last year. My wife was in a car accident that was deemed by USAA as not her fault. She was however injured and eventually required surgery. We carried $250k in medical insurance as our state is a no-fault state. USAA uses a third party vendor to handle their medical cases. They eventually denied the visit to the ER and refused to pay because "we didn't get prior approval" which based on everything else takes 5-7 business days. Then they proceeded to deny all care saying my wife was making it up, never injured, and had a psychological disorder making her think she was hurt...no joke. Eventually they went as far to say she was never even in a car accident. Needless to say we no longer have anything with USAA and when I called to cancel the insurance the individual told me he understood and that it wasn't the first time he had heard that before. Now we are well over a year past the accident and our lawyer is working the lawsuit against USAA because apparently that is what it takes to get USAA to pay out the policy I paid the premiums for all along. They like to talk a big game but should you actually ever need what you pay for...good luck.

And yet they will be shocked when the take rate is so low...in my opinion based on little to zero facts, those who take the bonus where likely already going to stay in. Those on the fence $35k might be enough to sway them, but it doesn't stand a chance to keep those already planning on getting out. They're going to need a lot more money than that. My profit sharing check every year (to date at least) is at least that much, plus I make more as it is, and I work far less at my airline than I would on AD. The AF can complain that they are short pilots and look perplexed all they want when the masses leave, but the reality of it is the airline industry is much more appealing to most than AD. Until they realize that and get serious with their bonus, they aren't going to sway many people to stick around.

Let me clarify because I didn't do a good job the first time...sorry. For about a year (I am just ball parking the time here) my airline was being fairly "aggressive" at requesting proof of mil duty by people dropping trips. They were overstepping their ability to do so and were asking for proof of points/duty for a full year to year and a half. They cannot do this and the union stepped in and said no and if we are contacted about that then we are to call the union and they would handle it. Didn't get us out of providing documentation, just required it for specific trip or days. The union was pointing to the fact that people were abusing the system for the increase in requests. Dropping mil because that would drop your trip or reserve days but then not actually doing any mil duty. So that's what I mean by management noticing because the number of requests especially around holidays was going up. I should have said that is in my opinion but I'm not so good at the words sometimes... When I can look at a monthly award of schedules and see people at the bottom of the list happen to have mil duty a couple days before Christmas, nothing on Christmas day, and then a day or two after Christmas seems fishy...don't get me wrong, if they are legitimately doing mil duty good for them and I am all for it. However, when every holiday looks like that seems like they are playing the system a bit. I have said it before and I will say it again for those wanting an airline job, you wouldn't like it if those of us now with one screwed you by trying to game the system...don't f*** your buddy. I have worked holidays and I have had them off. I have not and will not use mil duty as a way to get the holidays off unless I am actually doing mil duty! So no it would not surprise me if the airlines where shying away from Guard/Reserve types. I don't not believe they are and the pseudo abuse of mil duty at my airline hasn't been prevalent for quite awhile now but that's not to say it won't come back.

I haven't heard this nor seen it in practice either. However, it wouldn't surprise me though if it were true...too many jackasses out there who use mil duty to scam the system in their favor. When you are junior your schedule sucks, but using mil duty to get a better schedule or holidays off is noticed by management.

If you need any help finding a realtor feel free to PM me and I will see what I can do to help out. I do real estate in NJ but can use my company's referral network to help you find someone. Unfortunately I don't know anyone personally though in the DFW area.

Nailed it!

Delta is 12 months or 400hrs, and 3 CPO new hire meetings. The last was added because in my hiring timeframe we weren't sitting reserve ever and guys were flying green slips (double pay trips) galore! Mil pay wasn't even close to what we were making working half the time. It was awesome, but guys/gals were hitting 400hrs a couple of months in so the company changed it a bit to keep us on probation a bit longer. I think if I remember it's a meeting every quarter. As far as those close to hitting a full AD retirement, sure I can understand dropping the mil leave required to get the 20 AD years, but anything more it's exactly like you said, you are losing money and a ton of it! My second year I dropped a ton of mil (days at a time not long term) trying to fly and stay current and eventually qualified due to mx issues. Flew 3x in 6+ months because of mx but had dropped a lot of airline trips. It cost me a massive amount of money that year plus when our profit sharing came that was a double whammy... Even though I was home every night, the amount of work I was doing compared to at the airlines was ridiculous. Even my wife was fed up with it. Now I don't fly for the AF anymore and instead do ground work. Couldn't be happier! I fly enough for the airlines and work my mil around it.

Yes you can legally do this but every airline is different. At my airline you will then start your probationary period where you left off (seen it happen which catches some off guard because they thought they would be good to go when they returned). Aside from maybe deploying or being activated, I made as much on first year pay while I was an ART. I could still do my TR stuff to make up that part of the reserve pay. The only difference was I worked maybe half as much. First year pay can be a kick in the junk off of active duty but coming from an ART job? Not much difference other than the extra free time you have as an airline guy. Get through the probationary period...then if you want to drop long term mil to avoid "lower" pay or seniority, go for it but understand doing so could be F-ing your buddies as others have said. Airlines love retired mil dudes so they can say they are military friendly. With all the shenanigans of people dropping long term mil as soon as they are hired, well I think the airlines are getting annoyed at active reserves because they are trying to harass mil guys more within the restrictions of the law obviously. I have a lot of buddies still in the military hoping to get hired when they punch. I am just one of thousands at my airline but I am not going to do stuff that could hurt their chances.

Depending on the airline you may not know how long you have between INDOC and training until you are actually at INDOC. I was an ART, got hired at my airline, resigned my ART job (because it was the worst job I ever had so I was more than ready to go), and went to INDOC. While there I found out I had 7 days between INDOC and Day 1 of training. During those 7 days I was responsible for getting through the at home training portion of the course and ready to take the written test Day 2. No way I would've wanted to deal with working the ART job or even out-processing from it. Much much much more important things to focus on: airline stuff and family stuff. Obviously the flip side of it is if you have 6-9 months off...personally I wasn't willing to take a chance of having limited time to do anything more than study. If you are a reservist you could probably do the trough thing just as easily as do the ART job IMHO.

That was a tough read...I solo'd him out in T-6s. Talk about a great dude with an even better attitude. I felt nauseous reading that.

Fly only track...sorry Air Force, a couple of organizations already beat you to this idea: Delta, United, American, SWA, FedEX, etc... The difference is they don't have any additional duties, 365's, non flying deployments even if it is to a "flying" slot, no ADSC, and more pay/time off. This ADSC to 20 is ridiculous and I don't think it will solve the AF's problems especially as bros and broettes at 11-13yrs are talking about how great their life is on the outside. If they really want a shot at making this work, I agree with the other person that suggested a 3yr ADSC (since you can't take a shit in the AF without an ADSC). That may be just enough to entice some to stay in and fly a little longer. Then maybe you will get a few of those few who chose at 14-16yrs to stick it out to 20. This fly only track is nowhere near a carrot enough to keep most in with another almost 10yr ADSC trapping you to 20.

As I said I sit reserve, commute, and am very junior (read 95% best case from the top I believe). I am very very lucky as I commute NY-ATL and I have basically hourly service between the two every day. I have been away from home the same number of days I have worked (average 4 days per month). Now that takes 2 things into consideration: 1) I am very proactive in working my schedule, and working my requests to fly and/or sit short call which has worked out so far 2) my category is very overmanned and thus far this summer has been at the min hours end of the spectrum so that helps greatly too. I consider myself incredibly lucky in how the summer has gone and realize it will not continue forever. When I get transferred back to NY base, I will likely work more each month but since no commuting I won't have to play with my schedule nearly as much.