Kind of. Like TheFly said about ask Mesa Air Group.You have got to negotiate base upon what your peers get. The best thing that could happen to the regional industry is Mesa going under. Even though SAPA gets called the student council, its hard to ask for more, even with ALPA or Teamsters, when there is someone doing the work for less. Which is why for the most part things are pretty even, a couple exceptions either side of the mean value line.

As for amount of time off, Southwest gets more guaranteed off days per month than any of the legacies. AA, DL and UA line holders can go down to 12/13 (might have changed in the last year or so but I know my friend at UA got 12 days off this month on reserve). Southwest is 15/16 days off per month with a line, and 14/15 on reserve based on the length of the bid period.

I will include a link to the JetBlue contract comparison from March 2015. There might be a more recent one with better data, but it is good for reference.

http://www3.alpa.org/portals/alpa/je...%20-%20web.pdf

For your benefit it even has a chart of what their pilot vacation/sick accrual is for a 5 year longevity pilot.

What you need to do is make the same comparisons JB did. Take the information from your friends at other regionals, and the PPM. Once you have done that you (through SAPA) will potentially be able to ask for more days off.

1/3 of mainline pay? Maybe, but this is your internship, think of it that way. Also the pay you have now at a regional is much better than anyone ever dreamed it would be in 2009.

In 2010 the industry was completely different, GLA first year pay was $16/hr. Legacy pay used to start at $27/hr, Hawaiian is still starting first year at $36/hr. Over time with us as pilots negotiating better contracts everyone will see the benefit.