Today is another great day!
I completed my interview
today with Continental Express Airlines in Houston, Texas. Of the 13 of us that interviewed, four were
hired on the spot. I am happy to say I
was one of those four!
Unlike other regional
airlines I have applied to, COEX tells you your ground school date and aircraft
assignment on the spot. If I accept
their offer, I would be scheduled to begin ground school on September 10th
to fly the Embraer 120 Brasilia. The
Brasilia is a medium-sized turboprop (also known as jet-prop) aircraft,
designed mostly for short range trips (100-400 miles) and has a crew complement
of three (two pilots and one flight attendant). The aircraft cruises at 360 MPH, which is twice as fast as what I
am currently flying.
Continental Express is
currently upgrading Brasilia pilots to captain within a year of being
hired. That is very nice because that
means more pay and that all-important turbine-engine pilot-in-command time.
The other nice thing about
the Brasilia is they are only flown out of one single base, so unlike people
hired into other types of aircraft, I don’t have to wait until ground school to
know where we would live. If I accept
this offer, Stephanie and I will move to Houston.
By a weird coincidence one
of my former instrument students was in today’s interview and was also hired
for September. It would be great to
already have a friend when I get to ground school.
A September class date is a
little bit longer than I would like to wait.
However, that would give us time to sell the house and get Stephanie
finished up with her weddings for the summer.
Also, I would get to fly for Ameriflight during the summer, which I
imagine would be a very pleasant experience not having to plow through the ice,
cold, and darkness. I might even start
asking for reserve duty once in a while for some time off since building piston
time is not much of a necessity anymore.
Continental Express has a
great reputation and pilots who spend enough time there are generally hired by
Continental Airlines without so much as another interview, which is a great
situation to be in. I believe I would
immensely enjoy flying for this airline, although we’re not too thrilled about
living in Houston.
In any case, I have one more
interview which is next Friday with Mesa Airlines. That airline offers some great opportunities and desirable places
to live. If they were to offer me a
job, we would have a very difficult decision to make.
With the offer from COEX, I
intend to cancel my medical examination with American Eagle next week. COEX would be a better place to work in
almost every aspect so to continue the process with Eagle would seem to be a
waste of my time and theirs. Plus, the
medical is NOT fun, I hear. You get
stuck, prodded, poked, plugged, etc…
Yuck. So, it looks like I’m
going to turn down my first job offer.
No Puerto Rico for us.
I have all of next week off
for the Mesa interview and the previously scheduled medical with Eagle. Then it’s off to Lakeview for the next bid
period. I’m looking forward to
that. With the interviews and stress
out of the way, I can just enjoy the flying while I wait out my time.