Originally Posted by
Baxter76
He has said it himself, the first regional to adopt a higher paying model will win the day in the end. We will see if he stands by that at the negotiating table. Then the question will be would you rather go to a regional that pays well and has great work rules or go to a PSA or PDT that have some kind of flow to mainline
A lot of regionals bank on the fact that prospective FOs look at nothing but first year pay. In my own career I've found that to be true. I've blown a few of my friends minds when I tell them what I made on 2nd year pay because none of them looked beyond what each regional paid first year. BB and the rest of the regionals' management know this and have started offering signing bonuses to ease first year pay without raising pay for any other pilots because they've found that no one cares about their 2nd year pay. It will work too because the majority of prospective pilots won't look beyond one year into the future.
The attractiveness of places like PSA and PDT isn't in the flow through. It's in their prospective upgrade times. Endeavor has the flow through program and still can't attract new hires because of their non-existent upgrade. People will only go to PSA and PDT with their subpar contracts as long as they can get on the captain pay scale quick and build TPIC quick to get out. If upgrade times at either of those two companies skyrocket no one will go there.