View Single Post
Old 12-22-2005, 05:16 PM
  #10  
whodis
Line Holder
 
Joined APC: Dec 2005
Posts: 31
Default

Actually, I'm not so sure about those "tiers". A lot of those upper and middle tier carriers are furloughing now. Independence Air, for example, is a pretty bad place to be if you have less than 8 or 9 years of seniority, and nobody with less than 4 or 5 years even has a job. I work for one of the "lower tier" carriers, make over $20 an hour as a first year fo, average 14-15 days off and 80-85 hours a month and am scheduled to upgrade before I'll ever have to go to recurrent. I would be very wary of advice that tends to direct you toward carriers based on size or number of rjs, or that are entirely based on someone's opinion. Growth at a lot of the big RJ companies, which once had 2 year upgrades, has slowed or even stopped. A lot of them are furloughing. Amongst the regionals that are hiring, look at why they are hiring. Some are only replacing attrition, others are staffing for growth, I would look at those first. Many of those "upper tier" carriers do have work rules and pay that are better than the others. If you want to be a career RJ pilot, put those kinds of carriers at the top of your list. But if you are more interested in what your career is going to look like when you are in your fifties, it might be wise to put less emphasis on that and go to an airline that will make you a captain quicker. All the majors want turbine PIC time(and turboprops count), 5 years in the right seat of a CRJ might as well be 5 years driving a delivery van if you are looking to fly bigger equipment. Look before you leap.
whodis is offline