Originally Posted by
Lighteningspeed
I am not sure when you got hired by XJT but without getting into which regional is worse, had you been hired at Mesaba let say last year about this time you would have about 600 pilots below you in seniority and you would have upgraded to Saabs making Saab CA pay which is $44/hr. Not a great pay but better than XJT FO first year pay. Wait a few more months, you can upgrade into CRJ9. I also know plenty of Pinnacle pilots who have moved on to bigger airlines. I am not saying you made a mistake because XJT is a good regional by all accounts, but you should know what looks like a great regional today can be a not so good one tomorrow. This is true to Mesaba of course but as of right now, you'd probably be better situated at Mesaba or Pinnacle than at XJT.
So I should have picked my regional for upgrade time?
Guess I should have gone to Mesa or GoJets then.
$44/hr looks SOOOO appealing. I'll probably make close to the same take home as that SAAB CA, this year, as a XJT FO, and not even have the responsibility of being CA.
I'm not getting into a bashing of regionals here. I know very well that Mesaba used to have one of the best regional contracts out there. However, after NWA screwed it, it has insanely low pay for the -900 and terrible FO pay across the board, $28/hr second year pay?!
As for upgrading to CA at Mesaba, that wouldn't have happened. I'm pretty sure I would've needed 1,500 TT and I wouldn't have had that. My buddy over there was hired around the same time last year and he can't upgrade.
As for being better situated at Mesaba or Pinnacle than XJT, I highly doubt it. You forget who NWA is merging with and all those feeds on the east coast have no idea what is going to happen. People ripped on XJT for how unstable we are, but then we just signed a 7 year CPA with CAL that guarantees us at least 190 aircraft or about 2,000 pilots.
Another thing you have to take into account is QOL. Yes, even though ExpressJet stopped hiring, I will be making any where between $38K-$42K on second year pay. So if the industry slows down, where would you rather be? I'll take getting stuck with really good work rules and pay any day. I'm sure those pilots at Mesa are feeling really cherry right now.