We've had close to 30 captains leave in the last eight months (about 25% of Colgan's captains) for large-jet airlines, including Southwest (3-4), Continental (5-6), Airtran(close to 10, maybe more), Spirit, Gemini, Ryan, NetJets, ABX, and others. I'm not aware of any captain who has left to go to a jet regional. Some were captains from '99 hire dates, but a lot were from '01 through '03. I'm not aware of an '04 captain that has left yet, but a number of them have their 1000 pic and are beginning to get close to being competitive. We have had several four and five year Eagle FO's come over to us because they were tired of waiting for upgrade. And several of the Chicago Express street captains (a great group of pilots!) have left to bigger jet equipment.

I think in this age of RJ's we tend to forget that just 10 or so years ago many civilian pilots came out of a turboprop for a major airline. I've been told by hiring managers and hiring captains (specifically at Airtran and SWA) turbine PIC time (and recommendations) is everything and whether that time is in an RJ or a SAAB makes no difference to them. That said, realize I fly a SAAB hoping it's true, and maybe I'm just hearing what I want to hear!