I'm on the move again! LIAT has recently granted me a leave of absence from the company for a period of six months due to slowing passenger demand for travel throughout the Caribbean. This resulted in a cut back in the frequency of flights in our network. To add to this sluggish demand, many of the aircrafts are coming due for heavy maintenance checks, which most of the time means the aircrafts have to go up to Canada to be overhauled at Bombardier's plant (the aircraft's manufacturer). These checks can sometimes take the aircrafts offline between 2-4 weeks, depending on what needs to be done. After being informed by the Flight Operations department that there will some crew reductions in the short term, I figured I would see why is available elsewhere for the time being. Being the second most junior pilot on the seniority list can be quite nerve wracking especially when the word 'redundancy' starts spreading around the company.
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| The new ride departing CYUL (Montreal) |
I've managed to get a contract to fly Dash 8s with Air Creebec; an airline serving the communities around the east and west coasts of James Bay up to the Hudson's Bay. The next six months will surely look like it will be very exciting and another great learning experience in different ways: Many of the airports that Air Creebec flies into are short gravel strips, which provides the life-line for most of these communities, as there aren't any roads apart from Ice roads in the winter that connect them together. I sure will miss flying in the Caribbean, the beach and the sea, but the time will be up before I know it. It has been a busy past couple weeks, dealing with bank accounts, getting documents to and from LIAT, getting rid of my apartment and selling my car.
The chores came right down to the very last hour, finally making a deal to sell my car just by chance on the last night in Antigua and going to make the exchange only an hour before the flight to Toronto left! Needless to say, I don't have any material possessions to worry about down there right now, which is a huge relief, especially when getting into the heart of Hurricane season! From the looks of it, there won't be much beach weather for the next few days while Isaac passes through.I've finally it up to Timmins, Ontario (one of Air Creebec's 3 pilot bases) for training this week, leaving Antigua on Saturday afternoon a Sunny 33C, feeling like it was into the mid-40's, only to be greeted in Northern Ontario to a cloudy 6 degrees- the skies looked like they were about to open up with snow! I am in the classroom all week doing the same fun company training, but next week will be in the Simulator!
I will be sure to update again shortly, that's all for now folks!
