ATP extra time/Regionals

Airline Pilot Questions & Answers
1 
Read an interesting blog by a 19 yr old female student of ATP from a few yrs back.  She stated there were quite a few portions of her and her peer's training at ATP where purchasing extra flight time for pretty expensive prices ($225 for Cessna/$500 for seminole) was a must! For example, she stated there was simply not enough time allotted in the curriculm (8hrs) to transition from a single engine to the multi-engine checkride.  My question is, what were you guys experiences with buying extra flight time if you had to and how much would you save for extra flight hours?  Also has this changed any since the program has been extended to 9 months?  The blog can be found at flywithemily.weebly.com for anyone interested in reading it.

Secondly, I often see ads with regionals raising their hourly rate. I know bonuses can be taken away at any moment, but can regionals lower their hourly rates or are most bound by a contract to keep the hourly wages without the ability to lower them?

2

Almost all airlines are bound by union contracts that prevent any arbitrary changes from being made. In the lean times, pilots did take concessions, but those were negotiated with the union. Generally speaking, airline pilots have not taken concessions in quite some time.

3

No one at my training center that I know of has had to purchase extra flight time transitioning to the multi-engine. I read her blog and she made it seem as if everyone was purchasing extra time, but really the only reason that will happen is if you bust a checkride and need some additional training, and even then, ATP will try to pull time from another part of the program to keep you from charging you anything extra.

4

Thanks for the replies Chris & Tucker!