Republic Airways Reviews

Pros

Benefits are excellent including Health, Dental and Vision, 401K (some matching based on years of service), Standby flight benefits on Client Airlines. Largely knowledgeable supervision and co-workers with extensive industry experience. Most co-workers are friendly. Pay is acceptable for a regional airline. Company starts at $14.00 per hour with no experience. Yearly pay increase/cost of living increase is $1.00 per hour until topped out. $3.00 per hour cost of living adjustment for Chicago station. $0.25 per hour pay premium for taxi qualification (up to two aircraft types) and R.I.I. (required inspection item) qualification. Aircraft maintenance dept. is non-unionized at this time. Management and labor relationship is largely good. Uniforms are on par for this segment of the aviation industry. Equipped and tooled better than some regional airlines but worse than others. Used to be 12 hr. shifts now 10 hrs. Overtime is abundant on evening shift.

Cons

Company works very lean for an airline aircraft maintenance dept. (not a lot in way of parts, chemicals, tooling, ground support equipment and personnel.) This leads to delays, grounded aircraft and working without _____ . This sometimes means working on the edge of the envelope of safety. Aircraft Maintenance Dept. is not unionized. Work load is heavy per person due to the number of flights handled at this station. Chicago is a line station with no regularly leased hanger so most work is done outside on the ramp year round, unless the job dictates it be done inside or the conditions outside are so bad it has to be done inside. There are no merit based pay increases, the only way to get a raise beyond qualifications and the yearly cost of living increase is to be promoted.

Advice to Senior Management

The materials/parts dept. personnel and their leadership are underpaid and this is reflected in the people they attract and who they can retain. This creates many problem parts and creates unnecessary extra work for the maintenance dept. The First Officer pilots are underpaid and topped out after three years. This leads to a lot of interactions with un-happy first officers who write up the aircraft if the capt. won't. Many of the flight attendants are hires from failed airlines (many mainline/legacy airlines) and have un-realistic expectations for a regional airline environment. An investment in parts, chemicals, tooling and vehicles would greatly improve the working conditions and aircraft reliability/on-time-departure. The company lacks some depth at the upper middle management and supervisory levels due to their inability to competitively compensate people with this level of knowledge and experience and retain them.

Pros

Short work weeks (12 hour workdays), comfortable work environment (between co-workers at least)

Cons

Lower level salaried positions get less than 3% annual raises, No accountability for people with poor work ethics, offers overtime pay to hourly employees that are not productive (part of wasteful spending), and the company just makes you feel like you are only here for a paycheck.....

Advice to Senior Management

OPEN YOUR EYES......and fight for your good, honest, hard working employees!!!! They are the ones who help make the company what it is so stop overlooking them!!!!!

Pros

In any economy the only reason to work at a company like Republic Airways, is that you can't find a job elsewhere. Insurance benefits are above average for the industry. Vacation periods are bid on a year in advance, with little flexibility but vacation accrual is average to above average.

Cons

Incredibly inefficient schedules. Complete lack of feedback from middle management and front line supervisors. Hostile work environment. I just worked a two day flight series. Two days away from home for 1:31 of pay. As an FO completely maxed out on the pay scale I earned less than 24K, whereas JetBlue pilots on the same aircraft will earn about 3 times as much.

Bottom line: Management despises the employees at all levels below executive positions. "This is not a career destination" Bryan Bedford once said. In order to keep employee turnover high, experience (consequently: pay) low, management acts in ways to enrage employees. Forced relocations have happened 15 times in the last 5 years. Job stability in a base is non-existent.

Advice to Senior Management

If you'd like me to care about the product we deliver, take ownership of my work, and make this the best LCC around, please pay me a livable wage, hire competent managers, and don't tell me your business model is predicated on me leaving the airline.

Pros

Within my job, getting overtime is really easy to get and more often than not worth the extra money.

Cons

Overall pay, insurance is good but you pay out the *** for it. You definitely end up working a lot of hours, dealing with unhappy people, for little to no pay.

Advice to Senior Management

The middle management here are amazing people!! But there's some serious communication problems in the upper managment and honestly they don't seem to care about anything but the bank statement.

Pros

Decent travel benefits, easy to cummute bases, great co workers out on the line, but besides that absolutely nothing at all.

Cons

No flexibility in schedules, horrible frontier/midwest flying, no pay raises in years or new contract, you only hear from management when you are doing something they dont like, and they screw you any way they can to keep turnover high and pay rates low

Advice to Senior Management

Get rid of frontier, treat employees fairly, realize that front line employees can make or break the business and pay them liveable wages.

Pros

Good medical benefits but not without a substantial premium. The pay increases yearly cover the amount of increase oin premiums. So no actual pay increase is seen-mainly because of no contract negotiations or contract. Company focuses on Frontier and forgets the other entities that made it possible for Frontier to come into the picture,

Cons

Poor pay. Poor morale. You may work a 13 hour duty day and be paid for 5 hours. The company and Crew Scheduling is not flexible at all. Cannot trust anyone in management. Can be fired for absolutley nothing.

Advice to Senior Management

Inflight management needs to go.

Pros

One of the best reasons to work at Republic Airways would be the pilots and flight attendants. If it were not for them, the job would be a lot more difficult.

Cons

One of the downsides, would be that the airline crews are not treated with much respect from upper management. The pay scale and work rules are also very disappointing.

Advice to Senior Management

One way to improve moral would be to actually listen to the employees. I love my job in the airline industry. It is just frustrating that we really have no one to talk to about issues that we have.

Pros

There is a great group of pilots.
Training is good.

Cons

Company breaks contract often.
Company has a long backlog of grievances regarding the contract.
Crew scheduling will often not have a hotel room or shuttle service set up and they are not able to adapt to changes in flights.
Company often requires crews to deadhead on overbooked flights.
With the recent purchase of other airlines, there is now animosity between pilot groups.

Pros

Great benefits, fair work rules, good working enviroment.

Cons

Ever since the compnay purchased Frontier and Midwest Airlines the management has only focused on the Frontier operations and really forgot about the original employees of the contract business.

Advice to Senior Management

Management needs to recall how things worked before buying out a major airline and understand how they have changed and realize the company was created by the employee groups they are forgetting.

Pros

If you want to be a flight attendant, could be a good first job if it doesn't sour you on flying.

Cons

Company has no respect for employees, management lacks knowledge, basic social and communication skills. Promotions are not made on merit, and lack of skills in middle management shows.
Corporate employees are unprofessional in appearance and action. At a recent employee road show, a corporate representative who is obese showed up in a sleeveless casual top that fit like a sausage skin, sweat pants and flip-flops. Unfortunately, I was not surprised, just a little sadder that once again the company has such lack of respect for its employees.

Advice to Senior Management

I almost have no words except "Why can't you hire professionals for management and staff positions?"