PilotMech90

Johnlee6294, PM sent.

oldnewguy

I've flown 121 and corporate. Loved 121 time, but they ran it into the ground and Chapter 13. Corporate was even better, great pay close to home, but when the economy tanked I was the junior pilot and was the first to go.
You are just have to make a decision, just know each time you switch jobs, you start at the bottom.

Tacos

I am a regional pilot now but making the move to corporate in the next couple months. So I cant offer any experiance from the corporate side but what I will say is this:

- IMO, you would be better off going regional first. Reason being, you will build a lot of time quickly, get a type rating and an ATP. The reason I received the corporate letter and others didn't is because I have been able to load my resume with time and experiance from my 700-800 hours per year at the regional. Otherwise, if you want to start out as a corp pilot, normally you have to get hired into the right seat of a 135 outfit. You won't fly much and your QOL will be worse than a regional. I create my schedule at least and have tons of time off.

Like I said though, I am leaving for corporate and chosing it over a major, for the time being. I have kept in contact with old friends and it opened up a corporate job for me. You still have plenty of time to pick one and change. Good luck!

wrxpilot

I've done both, and absolutely agree that a lower time person is much better off going to a regional to build there time, get "seasoned", and reap the benefits of a structured flying environment.

I'm currently at a regional, and have interviewed with a couple different corporate operators. I would leave for the right place in a heartbeat, but unfortunately a lot of corporate operators are quite frankly pretty unprofessional. Poor communications, expecting non-aviation "office work" on the side, etc. I would not leave my current regional for anything other than a high quality corporate gig.

NovemberBravo

I agree with the girls get types like candy line. And if you doubt you can get into a major I think going to the regionals then corporate is the way to go.

bedrock

Going to a high quality regional (relatively speaking), will expose you to the airline training environment and discipline. This will DEFINITELY help you moving into corporate. I have friends who flew for various good to lousy corporate jobs, and none of the training and procedure discipline compared to airline. Regionals will also get you used to the fast paced of operations which will stand you in good stead.

Al Czervik

Disagree. Depends on the corporate job.

Mesabah

Prince Andrew's friend Jeffrey Epstein 'used aggressive witness tampering to prevent truth coming out' - Telegraph

Wynncore

I've done both (4.5 years in 91/135 and currently 4 years in 121). To sum up this debate in one phrase: With corporate: You live to work. With the airlines: You work to live. It is that simple.

As a corporate pilot you work at the pleasure of a company and/or a person or group of persons. You go where they go, when they want to go and for how long they want to go. The schedule can change on a dime and most of the time there is no schedule at all, just a vague "time frame" as to when a trip will occur. Your time off, especially vacation, is arranged so that is convenient for the company and/or persons you are working for. Even when you are "off" you are still considered "on call," so yes, while you are at home, you still cannot plan anything as the phone might ring at any moment. The training is suspect unless they send you to FlightSafety or SimCom on an annual basis and the "standardization" amongst crew members is a joke. Promotions are a slippery slope as it is always cheaper to hire an outside pilot with a type rating in the airplane before spending the money on you to get your type. Lastly, when the company's balance sheet starts to head south, you and your airplane are among the first to be let go, and in many cases without warning. That is simply the nature of corporate flying.

Now, some people will get on here and claim that as corporate pilots they are making huge sums of money with a set schedule and training regiment...while there are some pilots fortunate enough to have this situation, the overwhelming majority of corporate pilots have zero schedule, making barely decent to OK money and have very little control over their life.

In the airline world, you work to live. If you want to make a decent amount of money, you can, if you want to work as little as possible and still have a 75 hour guarantee each month, you can. While your quality of life and schedule are always dictated by your seniority, as you spend more and more time at a carrier, your seniority will improve, the hourly rate you have will go up, the schedule you can hold will get better and as long as the carrier you're with doesn't go out of business or shrink to half its size, you will upgrade to Captain. The training associated with the airlines is second to none, the standardization and actual flying processes are beyond outstanding and the overall nature of the job (in my opinion) is performed at a much higher level than at most corporate flight departments. You have travel benefits, set vacation weeks that you can bid on, the ability to arrange your schedule to your liking (relatively speaking) and many other tools that can allow you to tailor your schedule to maximize your quality of life.

Of course, not everything is roses in the airlines either. You have the whipsaw game, potential of furlough, incredibly low first year pay, unpredictable upgrade times and many other factors outside of your control that can affect your quality of life in a negative way. At the end of the day though, I feel that the airlines represent a better job overall to a pilot when you consider quality of life, schedule, pay, training, job security and career potential.

That is my $.02 on the matter. At the end of the day, do exactly what you want to do and do what is best for yourself and family while considering your future in the aviation field.

RB211

I'd be extremely weary of leaving the 121 world for corporate. Some people are simply not cut out for the airline world, others couldn't imagine doing anything other than 121.