Originally Posted by DBono

I was making a similar decision several months ago, needing a TX base, wound up at XJT and I like everything I see here and I agree with PeakEGT's comments. You will fly as much as you want at XJT, even on reserve. Reserve will be very short (Nancy Bradshaw is a new FO at XJT with a youtube channel documenting some of here training and early experience at XJT - I think she spent 1 month on reserve at IAH in Oct/Nov timeframe).

Regarding pay, XJT has this goofy "EOQ" that is $2500 per quarter if you can average 70 hrs of flying per month. On the surface that sounds easy and it sounds like ~$10 per hour, making the XJT/Envoy pay rates similar. But...… if you are a military reservist or if the reserve situation changes at XJT, it might get a lot harder to log that 70 hrs per month. Then the whole EOQ goes away. And.....any extra flying you do, even at 150%, is based on $40.40 per hr, not ~$50 per hour. We hope this goes away whenever we get a new contract. For now, this is the deal.


Here's why I decided against Envoy. You should go on the Envoy forum and ask some of those folks for updates on these topics - this was my perception 6 months ago, but things can change constantly. You need to get the latest info from the people who are actually there. Consider these questions to be asked.....

1) there seems to be two Envoys - the 145 and the 175. Life on the 175 is great - short reserve, fly a lot. Life on the 145 not so much - LGA base, several months on reserve, flying 20-30 hrs per month while on reserve. Upgrades as you approach 1000 hrs pt 121.

2) the cadets get 1st choice of airplane in a class, the cadets make up over half the new hires and most classes are roughly 50/50 145/175. This means that if you are not a cadet, your chances of getting a 175 are nil. I know you said airplane doesn't matter, but it does matter when it determines where you will be based and how much you'll fly.

While we're on the subject, are you looking at Mesa and SkyWest for DFW/IAH bases? Mesa just got their 175 contracts extended in IAH. They operate 60 E175s for UA out of IAH. That's bigger than some regionals. Lots of people trash talk Mesa, but I have a few friends there are other than the pay, they seem happy. With chances for extra flying at 200% credit, the actual pay gap may not be so large. Again - questions to ask the Mesa folks on that forum.