It has begun!
I arrived last Sunday night
and moved into my “crashpad” apartment along with two of my classmates. However, getting out here posed some
difficulty. I was supposed to have a
ticket waiting for me at a one-way reduced fair of $84 from Las Vegas to
Washington-Dulles, but arrived at the ticket counter to find that they wanted
to charge me $1160. After I explained
to them in great detail how I was a United Express new hire and had a CONFIRMED
reduced-rate ticket, they continued to argue with me and refused to honor the
fair. I had no choice but to pay the
$1160 since there were no seats available on any other flight. It was that or miss my first day of class
which would have been unacceptable. I
guess United Airlines has decided to keep itself out of bankruptcy by screwing
over employees of its affiliate carriers.
Upon arriving at ACA I spoke to the pilot recruiter who arranged my
travel. He apologized profusely and is
currently working to get me a refund. I
sure hope he is successful.
However, that’s where the
negative ends. I met my roommates at
Dulles Airport and we all drove to the crashpad together. It’s about 30 minutes away from the training
center in suburban Virginia. It’s a
nice place and a great value for the $200/month rent. They’re both great guys – one used to fly for Piedmont and the
other for Skyway Airlines. Both of them
left their jobs and gave up their seniority to come here, which to me says a
lot about the quality of ACA as an airline.
The first week of training
has been pretty easy. It was basic
indoctrination. Not really difficult,
just a basic orientation to the company and briefings by different departments. Didn’t really even have to take notes – that
starts next week in GOS, or General Operations Subjects. Basically, what we did in one week at COEX
is spread over two weeks here, so it’s not as intense.
Aircraft systems training
will begin the following week which is when things will get very intense. We have been studying ahead order to get
ahead of the game rather than merely keeping up. That way when things get difficult we should be quite prepared.
One of the cool things as
compared to COEX is we already have our company ID and full travel benefits on
United and Delta. Planning to start
taking advantage of that next weekend.
Not much else to report this
week but things should get more interesting soon as simulator training begins
which will happen in about four weeks.
Until then, we just hang out in the classroom and hit the books.