ATP Grads at Airlines

Flying the Line: PlaneSense

Published Jun 2, 2014 on Pilot Jobs

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John Kreitzburg began flight training with ATP in September of 2012 when he began working on his Private Pilots License. By March of 2013 he had completed his training and held a Commercial Multi along with his CFI, CFII and MEI. John then began giving back by instructing with ATP at our Daytona Flight Training Center. Although John had been interviewed and offered Conditional Offers of Employment during training by both Republic and SkyWest Airlines, John decided that he wanted a little more adventure in his first flying job (outside of instructing) and accepted a job with a fantastic Part 135 Carrier, PlaneSense. I asked John to tell us a little about his new job, and I want to share his answers here: Hi John, How was your transition from training/instructing at ATP to your present flying job? It was a fairly easy transition. Like anything that I’ve done up to this point in aviation its taken a tremendous amount of studying and preparation. It was different at first to step away from the role of watching over students to stepping back into the role of learning and being the student once again. What kind of aircraft make up your fleet and which one do you fly? We are mostly comprised of Pilatus PC-12’s and were just informed that we will be the launch customer for the PC-24. What sort of routes do you fly? We have 2 bases, and stay mostly in the eastern part of the country. Most of our customers are high net worth. Due to this, a lot of our flying is to vacation spots. We fly to the Hamptons, Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, Bahamas’, Key’s etc. We can utilize almost any runway. We can land and take off on a 1900 FT runway so we can accommodate most customer requests which is why our flying is so varied. What kind of pay are you making? F/O pay starts at $30k and then moves to 34k after 6 months. What is a typical work day for you? Typical day starts early and can have as many as 6-8 legs. All of our flights are catered for our customers which is done by the F/O before each flight. Most flights are 1.0-1.6 hr flights depending on what the customer need is. Our schedule is 8 days on and 6 days off and typically I will see 2 of those 8 days be on standby. What is a good example of a great experience you have had while working there? All the pilots that are here are all very nice and helpful. It’s tough to pinpoint one great experience so far. One I might choose was actually during my training. Due to some of our open water flying PlaneSense allowed me the opportunity to attend a water survival school. This school is the same one that our military uses for water submersion training. I had such a great time at this school and it was an experience that I’ll never forget. What is your wait going to be before upgrade? Upgrade is 8-10 months to Captain What opportunities for advancement do you have there? They consider themselves to be a place to have a career, and have a pay structure that is aligned with that. After making captain on the PC-12 I will have the opportunity to go to the right seat of the PC-24. Thank you John.

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