What I like / dislike about corporate flying

[Sulako]

Like:

I fly maybe 250 hours / year. Enough to stay reasonably current, but not enough to get burned out.

I am on a decent salary, enough to live indoors in a large city in Canada. If I work harder, I make more money. Good system.

Maintenance is excellent. My boss: "If I'm going to die in a plane crash, it won't be because I didn't write a cheque."

I am home most nights - our jet has a relatively short range, so we don't do a lot of long trips.

The jet is small, but cool. Like a sportscar.

Only have to wear a pilot shirt n' tie for charter flights - for company flights we are all about the golf shirts n' jeans. For ferry flights, out come the alternative band t-shirts from the 90's.

Lots of new destinations. We go to New York a lot, but other than that we get a good mix of trip locations.

Hotel points add up over time.

For meals, we aren't on per diems, we are on direct expenses. This means we eat wherever we want, rather than bringing a brown-bag lunch and saving the per diem cash. I have eaten many exotic species that are too expensive to consider on my own grocery budget but fit right in to my diet when we are on the road. This also means I have gained 20 lbs in 3 years.

Lots of time off when not flying. Our boss respects our desire to have a life outside aviation.

Great group of corporate pilots at the large airport I work in, which makes for good socializing.

I get to see what it's like to be a multi-bazillionaire, at least from a short distance.

Dislike:

Some of our charter customers can be picky, arrogant, and kind of disgusting. If a charter trip is for business, sometimes said customers can push to us to complete the trip in bad weather.

Flying with the same person can be great from an SOP perspective - you get into a rhythm and can really bang off the checklists quickly - but after a while you run out of new stories to tell.

Wearing a pilot shirt n' tie is the worst part of the job for me. It feels fake, like I'm trying to put something over on someone. And the tie feels like a noose around my soul.

[...]

Wearing a pilot shirt n' tie is the worst part of the job for me. It feels fake, like I'm trying to put something over on someone. And the tie feels like a noose around my soul.

A noose around your soul? Brilliant...Somewhere, there's a poet missing a line in a poem.

For 18 years in the biz, I've resisted the 'epaulettes'.

...time to sell my soul

[Cap'n P8]

I rock a clip on tie, so it's not long enough to tie around my soul! But IABD, unfortunately, we have to wear the "suit" for all flights. Fortunately, that's the worst thing I have to say about the job.

PS does anyone notice after using blackberries that they forget to capitalize things and use apostrophes and other punctuation...oops

[frontside_air]

+ golf shirts and khakis!
+ awesome schedule/company owns the plane so they can be home by dinner = few overnights = weekends off (my rubric here is being able to sign up for courses/teams that take place once a week with a reasonable expectation of being there most of the time- thanks, not in small part, to the understanding amongst colleagues that we all have real lives outside our jobs)
+ regular, stoic/low maintenance passengers who "know the deal"
+ fun coworkers
+ participation in our parent company's events (bbq's, picnics, golf days, booze cruises, sports teams, curling day....more importantly the open bar aspect of the aforementioned)
+ variety of destinations/meeting interesting people
+ getting to "live like the other half" on other people's vacations
+ well maintained equipment
+ the expectation that we enjoy ourselves on the road- rental cars, decent hotels, nice meals (ie no more rotting for 7hrs at an FBO listening to US frax pilots burning their bras and rattling sabres like in my charter days)
+ no nickel and diming on little stuff (issued laptop, blackberry, etc)
+ hotel points
+ the endless parade of university co-op students at the head office (to paraphrase wise words: i get older, they stay the same age)
+ parent company's personal enrichment policy (will pay for courses/further education)
+ good pay/benefits/rsp match
+ clearing private into the states!
+ the fact that the charter request to peawanuck that came in the other day was immediately deferred to subcharter
+ profit sharing

- profit sharing (i'm lazy)
- uniforms for charter flights
- logbook gets dusty/not a time builder
- GPU chasing (no APU on our bird)
- no galley/flight attendant (oh woe! [not that i'd want to be away from home as much as a plane with these would be])
- job uncertainty when the DOW/S&P dips (not really limited to corporate aviation but it is a fact)
- office duties (we're a small department which is essentially run as a separate business from the parent entity... but i wanted more experience in the business side of things so this was actually a + for me)
- actually having to pay out of your own wallet for hotels and meals while out of town on your own vacation/for weddings/etc comes as a shock to the system when you're used to whipping out the company card for everything


cap'n p8: that and the fact that i now speak in 1337sp34k in real life. "OMG HI2U bossz0rz, I CAN HAS DAYS OFF NEXT W33K!?!LOLO1!one!!1eleven! all your avtrip points are belong to us!"

[sissyphus]

I love not having epaulettes or a stupid hat. I just couldn't do it.

[Beater driver]

Should check out Buttonville Airport. The instructors wear epaulettes there.

[SmokinJoe]

+ Everything listed here.

- The fact that i'm not doing it. Cap'n P8, hook a brother up!

[undashflyer]

Like:

- Not worrying about how many hours a month I need to fly in order to pay my rent and eat something aside from 99cent pizza.

- Not hearing a goofball on a $99rtn Cancun flight complain that he doesn't have enough leg room and that his wife doesn't have a place to hang up her wedding dress because they're "like, going to go and get, like, married on the beach in Mexico".

- Destinations

- Same awesome co-workers

- Same awesome passengers

Dislike:

- Toronto? Again? For a week?

- Back to back long trips

- Having to pay for airfare for my vacation instead of using a pass.

- Not being able to see the look on the faces of the family of four, all with beach braided hair/ beads, arrive in YYC in December at 0130 to realize the beach attire wouldn't be appropriate upon arrival to YYC in December at 0130. Priceless.

Things I Would Change:

- Not a thing!

[learcapt]

"The jet is small, but cool. Like a sportscar. "

A sportscar, don't you fly a Citation???!!!...haha just kidding.

Take care!

[yzfer]

frontside_air: I'm jealous. End of story.

[Hawker]

I'm currently having to pay for every passenger flight I take at my company. (no flight passes)
Just wondering if this is pretty standard with most corporate companies or is this something I should really start getting used to

[Pratt X 3]

I'm currently having to pay for every passenger flight I take at my company. (no flight passes)
Just wondering if this is pretty standard with most corporate companies or is this something I should really start getting used to

Sorry, please clarify. Are you saying that when you travel for company business (i.e. going to pick up an airplane), the company makes you pay for the flight and doesn't reimburse you for the tickets? Or are you saying when you go on vacation, the company doesn't pick up the tab for the tickets? I've never heard of either situation.

[bob sacamano]

"The jet is small, but cool. Like a sportscar. "

A sportscar, don't you fly a Citation???!!!...haha just kidding.

Take care!

never knew the slowtation was considered a sportscar

[AboveTheRuin]

"The jet is small, but cool. Like a sportscar. "

A sportscar, don't you fly a Citation???!!!...haha just kidding.

Take care!

never knew the slowtation was considered a sportscar

Ummm, okay...I'm sorry, but I can't help and be a bit of a smart-ass in responce to you two gentalman above.
Citation is the current title holder of the fastest civil aircraft on the planet...So next time you are crusing along (feeling like the kings of your own shit) have a look to the side and know that there very well could be a "slowtation" effortlessly passing you in the fast lane.
I think that we can all get away with relating a Citation to a sports car.
...Like I said...I’m sorry, I just had too
Good night gentlemen.
And yes - I've flown Lears

[learcapt]

I agree with you abovetheruin, but the Citation in question is a Citation II I do believe. The Piaggio turboprop is faster!

But, not slamming anyone, just having some fun, glad to see guys like Sulako choosing the corporate sector as their career choice.

[AboveTheRuin]

I agree with you abovetheruin, but the Citation in question is a Citation II I do believe. The Piaggio turboprop is faster!

But, not slamming anyone, just having some fun, glad to see guys like Sulako choosing the corporate sector as their career choice.

It's all good ~
We arn't a tight-ass group of bus drivers here, of course it's all in good fun!
Maybe another point to tack on the long "What I LIKE about corporate flying" List?
Cheers!

[Hawker]

Sorry, please clarify. Are you saying that when you travel for company business (i.e. going to pick up an airplane), the company makes you pay for the flight and doesn't reimburse you for the tickets? Or are you saying when you go on vacation, the company doesn't pick up the tab for the tickets? I've never heard of either situation.

Sorry. I mean I know other friends that work for an "airline" that get "jumpset passes" on AC. They are able to hope on pretty much any flight they want when they want as long as the flight isn't full. Whereas the charter company I work for is not as large which is why I'm assuming we do not receive these benefits.
This would be for personal travel or vacation. I end up having to book and pay 500 for trips that I take whereas some of my buddys hop on a flight to vancouver for the weekend for free and just cause they can.
I'm just wondering if this is an airline agreement, or if there are charter companies out there that also have these type of benefits. or if in the charter world I will always be stuck purchasing my personal flights

[undashflyer]

Start saving for your vacations now!

Passes are generally provided within carriers on a reciprocal basis. So if we can't provide anything to them they can't provide anything to us. Kind of make sense to me. Though, I work in the cabin and not in the pointy end of the plane, at a previous carrier the pilots could jumpseat on AC because of the union they were in.

I feel your pain though. Though with corporate (depending on the client of course) some trips can BE our vacations. Nothing like two weeks in Europe! The last thing I want to do is jump on a jet somewhere for a getaway trip.

Regards,

UNDashflyer

P.S. - Forgot to mention, the major sked-float companies on the BC coast do provide discounts with a ramp pass.