MicCheckOneTwo

I'd say ex-mil pilots feel the same about training contracts as everyone else. Unless your end goal is one of the companies that has implemented a contract, the general sentiment is that you would be pigeonholing yourself, especially for those of us who have the multi-engine turbine time and just need to get the total time numbers up.

That said, the hiring climate is what it is, and even getting an interview this past year has been like pulling teeth. For that reason, I haven't boycotted places with a training contract and have been looking at it as a future problem if I get a CJO.

The sentiment amongst recruiters at RTAG was that interviews are expected to start back up around the beginning of the year. If that's true, maybe it will drive the free agent pilot supply down enough for these companies to ease up on their contracts. Who knows.

Excargodog

The problem is that there never really were a shortage of regional FO applicants. The regionals were parking planes because they were bleeding CAs to the majors. They were pretty much surviving on a cadre of older regional CAs who were now doing pretty well on bonuses after years of making $100k and really didn't have enough time remaining before age 65 to ever make enough at a major to offset the seniority they would lose at their regional, especially when you considered the commuting or base change they'd have to deal with.

But that cadre was by its nature time limited. The long term survival of the regional DEPENDED on getting regional CAs to stay around long enough to at least generate enough time for the right seaters to get someone else up to 121 standards (ie., at least 1000 hrs of SUC) to replace the CAs when they moved on (one way or another).

The only real effective way to do that was something like a five year contract.

AT MOST, a CA can only fly with a SIC 1000 hrs a year and with vacations, sick time, training, etc, most won't generate more than about 800 hrs of SIC time. For the regional business model to be sustainable, they simply MUST be able to keep the average CA around for 1000 TPIC before losing them, and realistically for even more than that, since you are going to lose some FOs along the way, if only to medicals, quitting, etc. that's simply math and queuing theory, not anyone out to get you. And going back to the old military flyers hitting the regionals for a "touch and go" is no longer something they feel they can any more afford because that makes their situation even worse.

So expecting them to give up the contract requirement is - I believe - wishful thinking. That's sort of like asking them to stop breathing.