Originally Posted by
JohnBurke
Have you ever been a captain before?
It's a lot easier to be a direct-entry captain if you have experience as captain. If you've never been a captain, it's less easy to go to a different company and enter as a captain in a system and culture where you've never served. This is especially true ifs a different aircraft, but also true if you have experience in type.
At Expressjet, on my second year I did put in for the Captain upgrade bid and it was rewarded on my third year. Unfortunately it got taken away as a result of the pandemic. So I came to Republic Airways as an FO on ERJ-170/175. I spent one year there. Unfortunately things didn't work out as i'd hope, which i'll only discard privately. But nope, no PIC under 121 time. And 90% of all the Regionals seem to be completely over staffed with FO's at the moment and completely short on CAs.