Originally Posted by MrStl

This is an interesting thread.

Skywest has been hiring 100 per month, 65 CRJ and 35 ERJ. Their seniority has increased by less than 200 in the last 6 months. They are losing almost 60 a month.

Who is going to fly all those planes they have coming?

Everyone is missing the lesson to be learned. In 1982 there were lots of DC-9-10s out there which held 70 to 90 people and pay for a captain was about 125 per hour and 60 for an FO. Taking into account inflation the pay for a pilot for the smaller jets is down by about 82% over the last 33 years. One regional just spent 4 years negotiating a new contract and obtained a 7% raise for captains, about 1.5% per year. They didn't even keep up with inflation. All you guys talk about is first year pay and a path to the majors. All the majors talk to themselves about is how smart they are getting you guys to only talk about first year pay and keeping the discussion of pay increases for the rest of the pilots down to about zero merely by waiving around a little possible flow and preferential interviews.