WarniWarni

Indeed. As an old United captain once told me, "This is the best part-time job in the world"

He was working 9-12 days a month and making over half a million a year when he retired

Amg4me

If flying is fun, why does everyone complain so much about the regional airlines? It doesn't sound fun if you read many of the posts on the regional forums.

Amg4me

So are you saying the regionals really weren't that bad? Or do you now have enough seniority to avoid being treated like a mule?

Excargodog

Oh, the regionals have certainly gotten better (even mor so since I left), but let’s be honest about what they paid before the pilot shortage in comparison to the majors for basically doing the same job with far fewer benefits.

here is a blast from the past:

So 7 years for an upgrade, after which a CA over 7 was pulling in $60k? Four year FOs we’re getting maybe half of that. That wasn’t very good money even back then. And after two more years the CA would barely be competitive for a major. The average regional guy going to a major was 45 years old and had 10,000 hours.

cornerpocket

In my experience, it's not so much about flying being "fun". The shine always wears off at some point. But there are pros and cons to it like every other job. A big pro to flying 121 is that your job duties are crystal clear relative to office work. For the most part, your duties are not as open to influence by the next big "cost savings measure"...you're still in charge of flying the plane from A to B. You're not going to be running the fuel truck and grabbing the coffee for passengers because some bean-counter got the not-so-novel idea to reduce staffing once again. To some people, the repetition in flying is tedious and boring. It all depends on what you value.

Dream

So when we quit do we get a vacation and user time payout? Or should I start using one or the other?

Amg4me

Yes, this is exactly what is confusing, why would an intelligent, highly skilled person accept this? My point was, you can't blame this entirely on the regionals. If a recruiter interviews two people with similar backgrounds, experience, etc. and one says he wants to be paid $100K and the other says I love this work so much, I'll do it for $40K. Who do you pick? The $40K guy who is clearly enthusiastic about the work and will work for cheaper, of course. Prior to 2019, there seemed to be plenty of folks who wanted to be pilots so badly that they were willing to accept low pay, marginal working conditions. That has now changed somewhat, demand has increased and barriers to entry are time consuming and expensive. So the regionals and the majors have to adjust their models to scale to the new demand curve. This is a time of transition where the experienced pilots now carry a bigger stick. I would think Skywest, without a union, would have some flexibility to offer some creative compensation packages, not only $$$ but QOL incentives, but that doesn't seem to be happening yet. I think there is still the mentality in management that folks want to be pilots so much, they will still accept market minimums.

Excargodog

Regionals are always economically constrained by the fact that they are codeshare -,they don’t sell their own tickets. But for Skywest - and most regionals right now - they have more FOs than they can gainfully employ. Because they can’t keep enough CAs. Despite DEC bonuses and credit for longevity at other regionals. And increasingly, they can’t keep their own senior FOs long enough to become upgrade eligible. No amount of zero 121 time FOs coming in at the bottom will change that until the majors stop hiring.

Adding new FOs when you don’t have the CAs you need o optimally utilize the ones you have simply slows the progress toward the day your existing FOs will be upgrade eligible by diluting out the SIC hours available - which just encourages the experienced FOs to jump to ULCCs or ACMI.


https://www.ft.com/content/70f0805c-...9-aabb0ea36324

aviator1998

Start using it now. Drop it on empty days on Sked. The advantage of this method over the lump sum payout is you accrue duty on it so in turn earn even more time.

Dream

so use both vacation and user time?