There’s been a number of changes since my last update. Unfortunately, none of them good, which is
probably why I’ve put off this update for so long.
We had to shut down our
ExpressJet Airlines branded flying last September. The incredibly high fuel prices (at the time)
combined with other factors caused us to close our Ontario and San Antonio
bases, reallocate some aircraft to Continental Express flying, and park many
others in the desert, probably to never fly again. We also shut down our Delta Connection flying
in
The net result was we
furloughed almost 400 pilots, demoted 150 captains to first officers, and
displaced hundreds of pilots from our West Coast bases to
We also took a 6% pay cut,
essentially in order to keep our company in business. With the rapid shutdown of our other lines of
business, we were forced into a new contract with Continental that pays us our
company less than before for providing the express flying. In order to keep us from operating at a loss
for the next seven years, our management decided to make up for it by reducing
our paychecks, among other cost cutting measures.
So needless to say, morale
sucks and people aren’t very happy to be at ExpressJet or any airline these
days. I really miss driving to
All that
being said, I’ve managed to take some measures to keep myself happy in this
career. For the last six months I’ve flown a reduced
schedule, about 50%. In order to prevent
even more furloughs our union and company came up with an agreement to provide
reduced flying lines to any pilots who wanted them. That also of course means reduced pay, but it
saved jobs and I have been able to make up for it by working more hours for
Jeppesen. This was really nice because I
was dreading commuting to
Unfortunately, changes to
work rules have made these reduced flying lines harder to get and pay even less
so I’m returning to full-time flying this month. Luckily, I’ve actually really been enjoying
my flying. Even though I miss all the
West Coast crews and routes, I’ve been able to fly to
The good news is my airline
is now fairly stable. We shouldn’t have
to lay off any more pilots or take any further pay cuts since I think we will
start showing a small profit again this year.
I was senior enough to avoid losing my captain slot so I still am
building valuable PIC flight time and enjoying being the boss of my crew. I honestly feel extremely fortunate to even
have a decent-paying flying job at all in this industry, as more than 5000
airline pilot jobs have been eliminated in the last year. I have vacation weeks in April, May and
September so we have a lot of great trips planned which will include some
hiking and mountain climbing.
Hopefully some time next
year Southwest will start hiring again.
I went out and bought a Boeing 737 type rating last summer in hopes of
increasing my chances of being hired, so hopefully that will help out. That was actually a lot of fun learning to
fly a new aircraft. I just hope the
$5000 investment pays off at some point.
In the meantime, I’m trying
to enjoy work as much as possible, and enjoy being home even more. Here’s hoping my next update has better news
to report!