Originally Posted by
jcountry
The longevity of those left is important.
The only ones left at ASA (and many on XJT side) have very high seniority compared to most regionals-and correspondingly high costs.
This is why those planes haven’t gotten placed. People like Kirby don’t give a tinker’s damn about experience or loyalty-especially at a regional. They want that metal in the air at the lowest price.
The cost of a 30 year capt vs a 3 year captain is significant-and creates perhaps the most important disadvantage for any regional.
Good regionals al aye run into this problem. If a place is (was) good enough that a bunch of folks chose to stay, their seniority list will become much more expensive that the crap operations.
Happens to ACA, Comair, and now ASA. It will happen to every regional eventually. It’s a life cycle.
I agree. But an even bigger factor than the actual pay scale is probably vacation. Think about all the high time pilots with 5 weeks of vacation each year compared to new hires with 1-2 weeks vacation. Even worse, most of our FOs now have over 10 years.