captainv

sounds good, but also think of what you'll do if you get stuck at a "quality" regional. for me, Comair turned into 9 years and 300 PIC. a few bailed at the first hint of trouble and found a quick upgrade at regionals that weren't top-notch. others went to the "hot" regional at the time and are still FOs there. some, like me, hung on and will be furloughed next year if they don't find a job. i really feel for people who came to us after flying for 2-3 other regionals that flamed out. or the 10-year Eagle FOs that came to us because it looked like a quick upgrade vs. infinity at Eagle. you never know what the right move is until it's way too late.

Lowlevel

Comair time to upgrade : -20 years!
That's right, a negative number!
First let them finish downgrading captains (10 more downgrades coming up, to add to the other few hundred), then after they furlough around 600 pilots by the end of 2012, that will leave the junior FO at around a 1999 hire and the junior Capt around a 1990 hire...then if everything goes well, upgrades will come by....oh, who are we kidding

IlliniPilot99

an april 2010 new hire is upgrading after the current bid...(this is at colgan, but its the same now)

im in the new hire class...am not chasing the upgrade but its nice to know

The Juice

Highly doubt this

typical41

That is all fun and everything.but for many of us, it is looking like a 9-10 year upgrade. Everyone hired through june 2010 at colgan will upgrade before many mesaba pilots hired in 2007. Maybe true for some pinnacle pilots too, not sure. If you are hired now, it will be a while before you upgrade. I would say at least 5-6 years.

There will be many pre-merger colgan guys experiencing a 1-3 year upgrade and many pre-merger mesaba and pinnacle pilots taking their first upgrade opportunity with about 6-10 years seniority. Just depends.

I really don't know why anyone would want to come to Pinnacle now...nothing special here. Reserve rules are terrible which can lead to a not-so-good QOL. PBS stinks, I can't even get 3 days off in a row like most line bidding would afford. Trip Trade system is horrible. To be fair, there are also many good things in our contract, but it is not the best. Thank god we have a good commuter policy, it used very frequently!!

captain152

There is absolutely no way this is true. On the last realignment award the most junior pilot awarded upgrade was a 9L '08 hire. On this current realignment award we will have 83 new CA slots, which is great, but almost all of them are for the 200 in DTW, MEM, MSP, and JFK. 26 new CA slots in IAH on the Q (3 coming down from CLE operation)... and the rest are on the Saab and 900.

I wouldn't be surprised to see early 2010 hires with the upgrade time getting the nod, but anyone hired later than February/March would be a shock to me with the 9E and XJ guys that have the time. I think most new upgrades will go to the Saab as the "senior" guys bid into the Q and RJs.

Juice - correct me if I'm wrong here ... I'm fairly certain the staffing quotas for all aircraft will be met at the end of this realignment as well. I think that was the whole idea behind this one... it's massive (and yes, that's what she said)

block30

Well played, sir!

atpwannabe

So...for now, it seems that the average upgrade time is roughly 3-5 years and could drop as low as 2-3 years within the next two to three years? Right?

I didn't see anyone post upgrade times for ASA in particular. Are their upgrades congruent with that of Skywest or what?




atp

cartean

this is not true. I was in the April 2010 class and no one in my class is upgrading. Right now I am approx. 30 from upgrade after this current bid comes out we'll see.

etflies

No 10 hires at 9L are upgrading off the most recent bid, I don't recall seeing any 09 hires either. This next one may cut into the early 10 hires but given the number of people still ahead of the earliest class from 2010 it will depend on what the BOS guys do with their bids and what the more senior Saab and Q Captains do. Most of the early 2010 hires I've talked to aren't expecting to upgrade this round. Down the road it will just depend on whether or not the quotas continue to be met or not.