Professional Pilot Career Journal

October 28, 2003 – Recalled to COEX

Wow – that was fast. I received my official recall notice today to Continental Express (which is now called ExpressJet, actually - so I will from here out refer to it as XJET). It was much sooner than I expected. Looks like I’ll be starting a new section on my career journal home page.

Apparently so many people have moved on to other flying jobs that they are progressing through the list of furloughs very quickly and will be sending me back to Houston for class in December or January. My lucky timing is just downright awesome – I should have just enough time off to take a break from everything and do what I want to do before I return to training to learn how to fly the Embraer Regional Jet again (which is now XJET’s only aircraft – all the turboprops are gone). It’s been two years but I think my experience in the CRJ should make training much easier this time around. I can’t believe it’s been two years since I was in Houston the first time. Looks like I’ll be in training for about six weeks. Where I will be based afterwards is a big unknown at this point.

This is all very weird – things change so fast. I’m very happy to be going back and I think that I may finally have some stability in my career. ACA scared me with the possibility of furlough almost from the time I arrived in Dulles for training but I just don’t get that feeling with XJET. They seem to have a solid growth plan and they wouldn’t be bringing us all back unless they were quite confident they were going to need us on a permanent basis. I must say I am bummed about the pilot bases. Nothing really appeals to me about Houston, Cleveland or Newark, especially since I have really found a new home in Chicago. But I always have the option of commuting. For now, my plan will be to commute from Chicago – at least through the duration of training.

I’m excited about being able to do some west coast flying. XJET is gradually moving west and already flies to places like Santa Barbara, Phoenix, and Palm Springs. I miss the mountains. Real mountains – not those silly little bumps they refer to as the Appalachians.

The SkyWest option is now dead. I am no longer a furloughed XJET pilot and therefore no longer eligible to go to SkyWest. That’s too bad but in terms of stability I’m probably better off being completely insulated from United Airlines anyway. Stability is a big deal to me these days.

Anyway, three more weeks here at ACA – I’m going to do my best to enjoy them, and more importantly, do my best to enjoy my time off. I’m going to miss the friends I’ve made at this airline but most of them live in Chicago and I’ll still see them often. I’ll try to take some pictures in my final days here and post them up. Then it’s off to Houston.