Originally Posted by Chuck D

There has been increased media coverage lately of the chasm between QOL/pay at majors vs regionals. I don't think it even covers the whole story or goes far enough, but I think there's also a significant aspect of regional life that has been overlooked - let's call it "regional churn".

There's almost no point to life as a regional FO. Yep, that's a sobering claim. The primary point is to spend as little time as possible as a regional FO in order to upgrade, gain turbine PIC and move on to a major... or skip the upgrade and catch a rare direct opportunity. Stagnation as a regional FO is a career death sentence and likely costs a large percentage of future earnings, opportunity to save for retirement, etc. $20-$40/hr does not pay many bills.

I can think of dozens of FOs at my airline who are on their 2nd, 3rd or even 4th regional airline, through stagnation or the company shutting down. I can think of more who have left this regional for another one, weighing the pros and cons of yet another year at $20/hr and once again slotting in at the bottom of a seniority list.

From management's perspective, there's nothing wrong with this. It keeps labor cheap and the churn occurs cyclically with new contracts, adding or dropping aircraft, etc. Just business...

From the prospective of the profession, this has caused many high quality pilots to leave the industry all together and has significantly damaged the careers of many many others.

Thoughts and comments? How does this become a story the media can latch on to in a way that can benefit us all?