Originally Posted by
Jvw700
I think a lot of you wide eyed new hires are in for a big surprise once your out on the line in suckville! And no it's not unique to Mesa alone but you really don't know how bad it can be until your out of kool aid land and into the real world... Your contract WILL be violated repeatedly! After a while the excitement of flying a jet starts to ware off and you'll start to wonder if it's even worth it! The actual flying is great but everything else you deal with, like not making any money sucks!
It's worse to be at a regional that's stagnant and shrinking and full of 50-seaters, even they have a better contract and better payrates.
I've spent the majority of the last decade flying for two different regionals, and have good friends scattered around the industry, and the above sentence seems to be the consensus.
I'm sure Mesa will eventually reach a point where the projected near-term bump in seniority isn't worth the slightly reduced payrates vs. a stagnant, dying airline like Air Whiskey/Eagle (and we might be there already for new hires now for all I know), but you simply cannot compare payrates/contract terms at a stagnant airline to payrates/contract terms at one that is growing like crazy--it's a subjective determination based on when you were hired and where you live.
I'll be racking up CA pay for YEARS at Mesa while I would've otherwise been capped on 4th year FO pay at Endeavor (based in JFK) INDEFINITELY. I know this won't be true for everyone hired recently, but it's true for me and I do not regret coming here at all.