Sunday Deep-dive! 🤿

Berry Aviation, INC was requested by a member of The Road to 1500 a while ago now. It’s been so long that he actually has gotten a job at Westwind Air Service, after our deep-dive. 🫡

Berry does Part 135 Cargo among other things like government contracts and FBO ops. It seems they’re not hiring FOs at the moment, but I’ll leave a link to their career page. Last opening was around mid-January.

This is all to say you guys replying with feedback, questions or suggestions really helps me to know what’s useful information or not.

I (often) take a long time to get back to you, but I always read every reply. Never hesitate to reach out: you can reply to this email, hit me up on linkedin, instagram or facebook, whichever works best.

Aight, let’s get into it. 🫡

POSTED REQUIREMENTS, what we know

WORDS FROM A BERRY AVIATION PILOT

“I started working at Berry on October 31st 2022. I had 750 hours total time with about 150 multi-engine. My aviation journey started in June of 2020 at ATP Flight School in Addison, Texas with their zero time program where I graduated in May 2021 with my MEI. I accepted a flight instructor job with ATP and began teaching at their Baton Rouge location late in the summer of 2021. From there I had the opportunity to gain valuable experience as the Lead Instructor, then moving into the role of Multi-engine Instructor where I was very fortunate to be able to build valuable multi-engine flight time. I lost my job with ATP in July of 2022 and applied to about 30 different flight schools. I thought for sure I would be able to find another instructing gig given my experience with ATP and having about 500 hours of dual given at the time, but I only received two callbacks – one told me I was not the fit they were looking for, and the other one told me to resubmit my resume, then never called me back once I did. I thought the pilot journey had come to a screeching halt until I applied to Berry and, to my great surprise, was asked to come in and interview and was then offered a job. I gladly accepted and began my first day of ground school on Halloween of 2022. I have been with Berry for about a year and a half now and I am one 135.299 line check away from completing my captain upgrade here. My plan was originally to continue my aviation journey with Southwest once I reached 1500 hours, but they recently updated their hiring minimums from 500 hours turbine time up to 1000, and I will only have 750 by the time I hit 1500. With a wife and two young daughters, there is no way I am keeping the Berry schedule and lifestyle for an additional 250 hours just to go to Southwest when there are so many other amazing opportunities for us budding aviators out there right now, so instead I am going to go fly for one of the regional airlines as soon as I hit my time.

the ugly…

The first thing to note about a typical day at Berry is that there really is no such thing as a typical day. Our business ebbs and flows alongside the auto industry in a near perfect parallel, so when the auto industry takes a hit (such as with the union strikes), we take a hit. When the auto industry hits its slow season in summer, so do we. The schedule is awful, and you definitely have to be committed and devoted to stay at this job and see it through to 1500. You are on call 24 hours a day from 6AM Monday to 6AM Saturday (or whenever you get released for the weekend). You are responsible for making sure you are not fatigued and are well rested when reporting for duty, which is sort of a catch-22 because you have no schedule for when you are going on duty. I have tried doing a sleep cycle where I sleep for 4 hours, then awake for 10 that way I won’t be awake operating an aircraft for more than about 25 hours without any sleep. This is extremely hard to do and pretty much futile because you get to a point where you have to become wired to be able to not just stay awake for 24 hours straight on 4 hours of sleep, but be able to operate in a high intensity, high stakes work environment. So, consequently, when you try to fall back asleep after only being awake for 10 hours, your brain won’t let you, even though you are tired. That’s another thing – get used to being tired. Like, All. The. Time. You are always tired. You can call fatigue when it gets to a point where you no longer feel safe to fly, but you better be very good at resisting peer pressure from dispatch trying to get you to fly even after you drop “the F-bomb”. However, don’t worry too much because the Chief Pilot, Assistant Chief Pilot and pretty much every other pilot at Berry will have your back and be in your corner if dispatch tries to convince you to fly (or tells you that you should fly) when you don’t feel comfortable doing so. That being said, the majority of our pay comes from mileage, so if you want to make money — and more importantly hours — then you will have to take trips and just get used to flying when tired (especially when we are slow). Remember your personal minimums from flight school? They teach you about them for a reason, and you will come to find your limit and get very good about never letting yourself get close to it. You will definitely become comfortable sleeping in FBO pilot lounges. There is also no real predictable “rush” times – you will fly at all hours of the day. Sometimes you will get called out Monday evening, other times you will sit at home until Wednesday morning, and even yet I have had entire weeks where I don’t fly at all until Friday afternoon for a short out and back from CAK up to Canada and back. You will get a ton of cross-country and night hours, and multi-engine turbine time in a Transport Category aircraft. You will spend a lot of time on the road and it is very difficult to have a normal family schedule since you get an hour callout to be in the air – essentially you have to live within 30 minutes of your base airport and when you get called out for a trip you have to drop everything and head straight to the airport. You will get used to always having a bag packed and ready. You will get used to getting a trip early in the week then spending the rest of the week sitting in a hotel room not able to do anything because you have to be ready to immediately head to the plane at any second. When it comes to other responsibilities, as an FO you will be loading and unloading all cargo – you will get dirty and you will be exposed to the elements, i.e. you will be sweating like crazy loading in Laredo when it is 116°, and also having your hands, feet and face go numb when you are loading in Michigan in the middle of winter in blowing sleet with temps below freezing. You are going to have a lot of long days. A LOT, and they will be 16-hour days by the time you count getting to the plane, having a 14-hour duty day then getting into the hotel and checked in. Berry pays for all your hotels, Ubers and airline flights, and you get to keep the points/miles. You will get per diem of $36 a day which is below industry standard, and honestly not enough since the vast majority of places we go to don’t have crew cars, requiring you to get food from UberEats which, as we all know, is absurdly over priced.

the bright side…

That being said, this is still a very rewarding job – it is HARD work for sure, but worth it if you have the determination, grit and ability to keep the ridiculous schedule (i.e. you’re unmarried with no kids). I have learned so much about flying and have become a much better pilot and aviator than I would have had I stayed in my previous job. You will be flying a highly complex Transport Category airliner in all types of weather, flying in icing, shooting approaches down to minimums, flying into big busy airports like CLE and MCI, but you will also fly into non-towered fields shooting black hole approaches at night onto short runways. You will get some spectacular views – you will fly into airports in the mountains of Mexico and watch the sun set as you wait for cargo to clear customs, you will takeoff out of Niagara at night and see the Falls lit up on your departure, you will watch lightning shows in the cumulonimbus clouds from 80 miles away as the day turns to dusk. I have seen aurora borealis, as well as Starlink satellites streak across the night sky. Another great thing about this job is the people you will meet – the people you fly with are awesome and you become like a small unofficial family.

the money talk…

When it comes to pay, it is not as good as the forums make it sound. You have the opportunity to make a lot of money, but it depends entirely on how busy we are as a company. Pay varies slightly depending on aircraft and base, but is broken up into two forms – your base salary and your mileage rate. I started as an FO based in CAK on the EMB120, my base salary was $40,000 and my mileage rate was $0.15 per statue mile flown. I can’t honestly give you an average or expected amount of hours to be flown per month because the industry has been so unpredictable on a month to month basis. Some months you will fly 70 hours, and others you might only fly 20. Back in 2021 the post Covid surge was in full effect and Berry pilots were averaging about 100 hours a month. Things have since slowed down back to the normal rate of business, so I would expect anywhere from 400-600 hours a year here. Last year in 2023 I flew about 450 hours and earned roughly $70,000 before taxes. Berry doesn’t have the greatest 401(k) match – you're definitely going to find better once you go to the airlines – but it is worth taking advantage of if you can. There is a 4 year vestment schedule, and every January we get a mileage bonus (mileage rate depends on your position and years of service) and every year captains get a retention bonus – I can’t remember the exact bonus schedule, but the first year is $5k. As mentioned earlier, the per diem is low at $36 a day and is paid after the month that you use it. So, plan ahead with your finances so that you have money to eat while you’re on the road. This is especially difficult when you had a slow month the previous month then you are spending a lot of time on the road the next month. The pay is nowhere near as good as it is at the regionals because the FO base salary is not enough to count on to be able to pay bills for most people just by itself, so you’re always using a flexible budget and you are going to have to live frugally. For training, all your hotels are paid for but you’re on your own for food. There is a one-year training contract, but there have been so many people leaving after 6 months or less and I haven’t heard anyone talking about it being enforced, but don’t take my word for it – be on the safe side and just assume that the one year training contract is going to be enforced. There is no relocation assistance.

how does one get the job…

In terms of advice I would give to prospective pilots is make sure you are strong in your hand flying skills and strong in your instrument flying/instrument procedures knowledge. When I came in for my interview it was like a full airline technical and HR interview – pretty standard stuff, technical questions, ADM questions and a scenario or two. There was a flight portion of the interview in their FTD where you just do basic stuff like steep turns, a stall or two and an uncoupled ILS. I’m not sure if they have any hard set minimums, I think it is sort of a case by case basis but they do take into account the types of aircraft flown, what you did in your previous job, and multiengine time is an absolute must – the Brasilia is a twin prop so all the principles you learned on the multiengine props in school absolutely apply here, but on steroids. Knowing your multiengine stuff and having experience flying multis is crucial. Other than the technical stuff, they are just looking to make sure you are going to be a good fit – you're going to be spending a lot of time with the people you fly with, and most of the time you are both going to be tired and sometimes even stressed out, so they want to make sure you’re not the type of person who is just grumpy, snaps at people and is just unpleasant to be around. Professionalism and being laid back and agreeable while having the ability to speak up and put your foot down when needed goes a long ways.

This is not an easy job by any means, but it is very rewarding and satisfying. You will work long, hard hours and have a very rough schedule, but you will also get to travel to some incredible places, do a ton of incredible flying and you will grow so much as an airman. If you just want an easy way to build your hours and do the same easy flights every day over and over, then this wouldn’t be the right fit. However, if you are passionate about learning and growing, are a hard worker, you’re looking for a job that is exciting and very adventurous and can take an extremely demanding schedule then this job is for you.”

WANT THE OPPORTUNITY TO GIVE FEEDBACK, ASK QUESTIONS AND GET MORE FREQUENT UPDATES ?

Join our private community by following these 2 steps:

1️⃣ — Welcome survey, gain access to our private Facebook Group by completing it (link)

2️⃣ — The Road to 1500 (newsletter community), because it’s a hidden group, I apparently can’t leave a permanent link here.

Send a message to our Facebook Page (link) when you’re done with the survey and I’ll send you a link. I ask for feedback and opinions in there, nothing too crazy but you’re absolutely welcome to join.