BoilerUP

I seriously doubt any line pilot, especially one flying a 737, made $48,000 in a single month.

That'd be like an entire month of Rolling Thunder and then some...

worstpilotever

Bzzt,

At least you are honest in admitting that you didnt want to do everything possible to make yourself above average. A couple of hundo to increase the odds dramatically of landing what could be a very lucrative career. Seems like a no brainer to me. I went to OBAP AND WIA and am neither of those groups. Had a great time and met some cool people. Probably best you didnt waste your money, they can spot a negative attitude a mile away, and that is one thing they want to avoid. Good luck in the future.

DJ,

People forget that just a few years ago Delta sucked. They turned it around and so will Ual. They are going through some pains right now, but i firmly believe they will overcome them and be a premier carrier again.

Bzzt

You're probably right, although I wasn't competitive anyway, no 121 PIC and only ~4k TT, so it probably would have been a waste either way.

buddies8

And aa will get flushed down the toilet with douggie and Kirby.

80ktsClamp

That's 227 credit hours.... not really sure how that's possible, but it doesn't pass the sniff test. I have seen guys routinely pull in 130-150 hours, though. A guy I fly with a lot on the 320 will be above 400k for the second year in a row this year.

worstpilotever

How many ex-wives does that equal?

Stinsat7

Perfectly put by a Mesa pilot. Regional pilots everywhere are risking their livelihood fighting for better pay meanwhile you guys work for some the lowest wages out there. Blame ALPA, blame management, blame major pilots but it's guys like you showing up for work at places like Mesa that it impossible for others to get more.

deltajuliet

Nobody is happy about recent developments with the American feed. But I just got here, and most regional pilots are also new enough that they had nothing to do with how the regional system developed and then went bad. Regionals were never, ever meant to be a career. You can thank Osama bin Laden, you can thank Wall Street and people who bought houses they couldn't afford, you can thank legacy pilots for trading scope, and you can thank Congress for extending retirement (although I think that was reasonable). But it's really silly to blame a guy who just got here for a problem decades in the making. I'm sorry for wanting to maximize my earnings potential and putting myself in the best position to reach a major. Should I have gone to ExpressJet? Envoy? AWAC? Sat right seat for a decade, then gotten furloughed and started over somewhere else with a quick upgrade anyway to make up for lost time like half the guys in my class?

makersmarc

I reckon he throwed us a curve with that one.

tom11011

ALPA didn't neuter themselves that's wrong. They simply do not represent the interests of regional airline pilots in an effective, meaningful way. Of course they are happy to collect your dues and give the token speech on the evils of management etc.. but in the end they don't represent you.

In ALPA's view, they represent you by proxy. They say everything they do is for your own good once you get to the majors.

ALPA views regionals as nothing more than a B scale which they allow. In order for the guys at the very top to be wealthy, there must be guys like you at the bottom on food stamps.

The industry and ALPA want the regional airlines (B scale) to exist, there isn't much you can do about that. But what you can decide as a pilot group at your airline is what kind of place it will be for pilots.

Will it be an up and out type of place only? Then you want ALPA. Flatten the payscales completely for Captains and FO's
-or- will it be a place you make a career? If so, you want someone other than ALPA. Be prepared for FO's to starve and Captains to make more at the regional for the latter.

It's really that easy. Play the cards you are dealt is your only option, but that doesn't mean you don't have some options.