DaCowboys

Question. Envoy or republic who would you choose? In the pipeline program(envoy), which locks me in unless I pay 5k.. Or republic who is offering 5k bonus to get me out of envoy contract. Thanks

Whiskey4

Depends. What would provide you the greatest QOL?

Living in base is a huge plus for balancing out the negatives of working at a regional. If your making peanuts you might as well try to figure out how to spend the least amount of time (and money) at work.

Things I wouldn't use to make my decision:
- Current upgrade time (too variable)
- Aircraft (doesn't matter...unless you need a 170/190 type for foreign contract jobs)
- Pay rate (you have to do some research as a decent pay rate may mask other poor areas of the contract...i.e. getting paid for cancellations, delays, etc. More hours of pay often outweighs the $/hr)

DaCowboys

Dfw would be no commute. So only chance would be envoy. As for the others not too sure how they compare.

flapshalfspeed

Currently at only 25 pilots, but probably increasing in size as the 900s move from CLT to DFW. It'll be a junior base for a while. A decent chance of holding it by the time you finish IOE/checkride.

Right now, a May 2013 hire would be around 5-8 out of 25 on the DFW FO list. Bottom FO in DFW is roughly a July/August 2014 hire.

Reserve at Mesa is not bad at all. Very few FOs bid "call-me-last" due to our low pay, so if you have your financial house in order and just want a place to fly 121 from home for a while, just bid CML and you'll be home a lot.

I can't remember if Eagle/Envoy does training in DFW, but I suppose that'd be a consideration as well (Mesa does CRJ training in PHX).

Additionally, keep in mind Mesa has a one-year training agreement. I believe it's $10k, decreasing on an amortization schedule over your first year of employment, however any remaining balance at time of resignation is cut by 50% if you give them 45 days notice of resignation.

Mesa also seems very liberal about granting leaves of absence. There are quite a few junior pilots on our seniority list who came here to get current, asked for long-term leaves of absence, and are still riding the seniority list while doing contract flying/military contractor jobs/etc.. Quite a few older corporate pilots mysteriously went out on long-term LOAs soon after hitting the line (cough cough they're flying Gulfstreams and Hawkers somehwere), and our current ops manuals do not require any outside flying to be reported to the company or crew scheduling subsequent to the FAR 117 rule change on flight time limitations. Just something to consider.

Anyways if you're a former military aviator they'll prob try to give you an EJet (IAH) class, but you'll wanna go CRJ if you want to end up in Dallas within a few months after training.

Spoiler

envoy going down to 2 bases - dfw and ord
50 50 I would say