Central Mountain Air weekly job ad...

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Laguardia
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Central Mountain Air weekly job ad...

Post by Laguardia »

Just thought i'd point this out... CMA has been constantly posting a job ad every 1 to 3 weeks for the last couple months. I can only imagine that the job section gets filled quite quickly so ads get deleted eventually, meaning CMA has been posting at a constant rate for a while now

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What gives? Is it that hard to find qualified guys?

Also for what it's worth, if you look in the job posting from Feb 2014 (which somehow is still around), they're requirements are the exact same as today
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JVader
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Re: Central Mountain Air weekly job ad...

Post by JVader »

I dont want to live in Smithers is a big factor..
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propfeather
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Re: Central Mountain Air weekly job ad...

Post by propfeather »

I'd enjoy living in Smithers but they need some serious pay and schedule improvements from what I hear.
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the AK
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Re: Central Mountain Air weekly job ad...

Post by the AK »

They have added 3 or 4 more Dash 8's to the fleet with more coming from what we have heard. To be honest I am not even sure how many we have now, seems like a new one shows up every week.

No one knows why they are bringing them online. The brass doesn't bother to tell us this. But what we do know is that the working environment has turned into a complete nightmare. Take a company that on a good day is completely disorganized and add more variables. They don't have enough crews for the planes and the ones they do have are working under brutal schedules limping new (to the company) planes around. The company is its own worst enemy because it is such a mess.

Three years ago the amount of CYYC maintenance people we had working the floor between the two shifts was 34. Now with a ton more airplanes they are down to 12. They are being asked to do more with less. Now you may think that the company was proactive and offering something to acknowledge the hard work. Nope! They are still messing around with peoples vacation and just nickel and dime-ing them to death. I literally heard a manager from Smithers say "There just aren't any AME's anymore". They are in such an echo chamber that they can't entertain the idea that perhaps the working environment that they have created isn't that appealing for what is being offered. And of course people are quitting at a steady pace which just puts more pressure on those remaining and they in turn start looking for work else where. And thus a feed back loop is created.

It is the same story for the pilots only for different reasons. These planes are being brought on to the OC are all old dash 8 100's. I flew one the other day and looked at the journey log and the thing had 60 some thousand hours with just over 68 000 cycles! Now one would think the plane might have some teething problems and we should nurse it along until the snags get worked out. Nope! Not good old CMA. In typical CMA zero common sense management they put these Dash's on a 6 day pairing AWAY FROM ANY MAINTENCE BASE. It NEVER sees a maintence person for 6 days straight. And then they pressure the pilots to fly them when they break down. This complete lack of any common sense is prevalent at every level of the corporate structure coupled with complete disorganization. A crew showed up at the hanger to do a flight test on one of the Dash's and no one could find the C of A. It just disappeared. Gone.

We had an internal memo come out and it was concerned with OTP. The on time performance on charters is 90 some percent where as for the sked is 72%. Now it's the same pilot group on both but the difference is on charters those pilots aren't relying as heavily on the company structure. Instead operating out of various FBO's. A pilot flying the sked has to fight the company itself just to try to get the flight out on time.

True to form the company hasn't increased the pay or improved the schedule to attract pilots. Management sits in Smithers and must just think that pilots are extinct.

CMA - The impossibility of reason
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MZUNGO
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Re: Central Mountain Air weekly job ad...

Post by MZUNGO »

the AK wrote: Fri Sep 13, 2019 12:53 pm

Three years ago the amount of CYYC maintenance people we had working the floor between the two shifts was 34. Now with a ton more airplanes they are down to 12. They are being asked to do more with less. Now you may think that the company was proactive and offering something to acknowledge the hard work. Nope! They are still messing around with peoples vacation and just nickel and dime-ing them to death. I literally heard a manager from Smithers say "There just aren't any AME's anymore". They are in such an echo chamber that they can't entertain the idea that perhaps the working environment that they have created isn't that appealing for what is being offered. And of course people are quitting at a steady pace which just puts more pressure on those remaining and they in turn start looking for work else where. And thus a feed back loop is created.

CMA - The impossibility of reason
the same with YVR. last year all of the D-8 experience walked out the door. and had to be replaced with much more expensive contractors. one story I heard from one of the guys that left is, they got 3 Dash-8's on top of the several 1900's but didn't hire any more people. then the cherry on the cake was that they were giving the maintenance guys shit for not grooming the planes good enough. he said that they were spending 6 hours grooming planes on the shift and only had about 3 for actual maintenance.

sounds like a terrible work environment.
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the AK
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Re: Central Mountain Air weekly job ad...

Post by the AK »

I can confirm that the story is true. FA's were complaining about the state of the cabin. CMA management in it's infinite wisdom put 3 Dash 8's in Vancouver but didn't bother to hire any groomers.
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co-joe
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Re: Central Mountain Air weekly job ad...

Post by co-joe »

Kinda glad they ghosted me after the interview.
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77W
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Re: Central Mountain Air weekly job ad...

Post by 77W »

the AK wrote: Fri Sep 13, 2019 12:53 pm In typical CMA zero common sense management they put these Dash's on a 6 day pairing AWAY FROM ANY MAINTENCE BASE. It NEVER sees a maintence person for 6 days straight. And then they pressure the pilots to fly them when they break down.
You could just write the defect in the log book as required by the CARs and make them fix it? Just remember it's your license on the line and the company will just say "we trained them properly blah blah blah" and hang you out to dry if something were to happen or TC ramped you.
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Plane_sight
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Re: Central Mountain Air weekly job ad...

Post by Plane_sight »

Laguardia wrote: Fri Sep 13, 2019 11:48 am What gives? Is it that hard to find qualified guys?
With what they pay captains I would expect it to be quite challenging to fill those seats with anyone other than internal applicants.

As for FOs, their ramp & dispatch depts used to be full of them, so it's baffling as to why they continue to include FOs in the job ads. With the ever-present surplus of 200-hr pilots, I'm sure they still have some eagerly awaiting their chance to move from the ground to the flight line.

the AK wrote: Fri Sep 13, 2019 12:53 pm Management sits in Smithers and must just think that pilots are extinct.
Hilarious!
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the AK
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Re: Central Mountain Air weekly job ad...

Post by the AK »

We do write the snags in the book. But you are still going to get a phone call from management asking why you didn't "fly it to XYZ airport". Plus they will never send maintenance to fix it. They will just get a ferry permit.

They don't fill the FO spots with dispatchers so much anymore because the high turnover makes it a HUGE brain drain out of dispatch.

Trust me you dodged a huge bullet having them not call you. Count yourself very fortunate!
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RILEY
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Re: Central Mountain Air weekly job ad...

Post by RILEY »

For the amount of posts they put out I don’t see any new pilots coming online.... at least nothing planned for September. They are hiring guys right out of BCIT though so those requirements don’t reflect the reality of the candidates they are taking a look at.
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fixnfly
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Re: Central Mountain Air weekly job ad...

Post by fixnfly »

Yea seems like a pretty disorganized place to be. I had a friend on the Dornier out of YYC that quit 4 months ago. At the time, they had 3 First officers including him and 1 Captain for 3 Dorniers. The chief pilot was trying to help out part time with the line flying but it just wasn't working out. They weren't trying very hard to find new pilots either but maybe that's changed since then.
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Phlyer
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Re: Central Mountain Air weekly job ad...

Post by Phlyer »

Holy crap that is crazy.
Thanks guys for sharing your insights.
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Laguardia
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Re: Central Mountain Air weekly job ad...

Post by Laguardia »

Ok so here's what i've gathered from all the different posts

- They are severely short on pilots
- They are disorganized
- They pay relatively low compared to the competition
- They have perfect candidates in dispatch, yet they still can't/don't fill the FO positions because the high turnover makes it a HUGE brain drain
- They do hire guys right out of BCIT, so the 1000 hour min for FOs isn't exactly accurate

So if they are hiring candidates right out of BCIT, why not hire them into dispatch and promote the dispatchers to flight line? Why not continuously hire into the dispatch and move the dispatchers into flight line? At least that way they somewhat solve the "FO shortage". Are the dispatchers real dispatchers with a license, or are they "flight followers" whom they just call "dispatcher"?

I'm so confused... :rolleyes:
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the AK
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Re: Central Mountain Air weekly job ad...

Post by the AK »

They want 1000 hours for the FO's on the 705 aircraft. Under 1000 hours I think they put them on the 1900's. It takes about 3 months for a dispatcher to become useful in that position. There are only two licensed dispatchers and the rest are under the supervision of those. The problem is that they were hiring dispatchers just to turn around and have to put them on the flight line. Which is great for those lower time pilots but not so great for the operation because it just leads to a mess in dispatch. The company tried to get away from hiring pilots as dispatchers because of this but got caught in a typical catch 22. No one wants to move to YYD to work a terrible job for terrible pay as a dispatcher but they don't want to put pilots in that position because they won't be there long enough. Welcome to CMA
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Choppermech1986
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Re: Central Mountain Air weekly job ad...

Post by Choppermech1986 »

There's a bit of misinformation above but I won't bother addressing it, I'll just give my 2c.

The training is top notch, the iron is well kept (although it seems the new Dash 8's have a few squawks to work through), the flight benefits are fantastic, the team are mostly great value and the Chief Pilot isn't a company shill. They seem to pay par for the course yet struggle to keep experienced Captains but that may have something to do with the massive pilot shortage across the world at the moment.

It's not all rosy but they're in the top three aviation employers I've had (and with 15 years in aviation, I've had a few)

Don't let a few squeaky wheels on AvCanada put you off from making a considered decision.

YMMV.
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77W
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Re: Central Mountain Air weekly job ad...

Post by 77W »

the AK wrote: Sat Sep 14, 2019 11:06 pm We do write the snags in the book. But you are still going to get a phone call from management asking why you didn't "fly it to XYZ airport". Plus they will never send maintenance to fix it. They will just get a ferry permit.
1 - Management shouldn't be calling asking why you aren't flying an aircraft with an open problem on it. If they are, start recording your phone calls and refer them to the appropriate section in your company operations manual regarding airworthiness.

2 - Ferry permits attract attention from TC and eventually your problems will be solved.
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the AK
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Re: Central Mountain Air weekly job ad...

Post by the AK »

Or just start looking for a different job
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GhostRider6
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Re: Central Mountain Air weekly job ad...

Post by GhostRider6 »

They had a bunch of qualified Dash AME’s, groomers and Pilots ... you name it .. until they folded up Hawkair.. lease returned the aircraft then picked them up again from avmax with the “ Hawk” removed from the tail.... but with the same paint scheme ...

Now they’re looking for Dash pilots and AME’s again ... Hahahha Hahahha 🤦‍♂️ Have Fun!
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UnderRDR
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Re: Central Mountain Air weekly job ad...

Post by UnderRDR »

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Last edited by UnderRDR on Mon Nov 18, 2019 11:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
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