JO kept saying don't look at pay rates, rather, look at what's in your bank after each paycheck. Let's compare an Endeavor 2nd year FO and a 3rd year Mesa captain:
$33 x 76 hours + retention bonus = $4,424.
$60 x 76 hours = $4,560.
Guess what? I have friends over there who make more as 2nd year FOs than me as a 3rd year Mesa captain on reserve. They get credited %150 for flying over min guarantee. A 3rd year captain at Endeavor can break six figures. Sure Mesa may have the most pilots making over $100k, but that's because of all the damn geezers in that retirement home PHX who have all been here 20+ years. Mesa as a "career airline" as JO put it? Why wait 20 years to break six figures when you can go to endeavor and make that in 3 years.
Endeavor doesn't have unicorns either. Not only that but their upgrades are just as quick as ours. They also have guaranteed interviews with Delta.
You wanna talk about growth and retention?! Endeavor has almost 1700 pilots now. Tell me how many pilots they had 3 years ago when Mesa started all their growth. We've been stuck at 1300 pilots for over a year now. We can't keep FOs from sticking around (with good reason) Who gives a **** how many 200s Endeavor has or if they have any parked someplace, Endeavors success should be looked at as a model for the regional industry. The way they're attracting pilots shows that it's a pay shortage and not a pilot shortage.