Originally Posted by tpersuit

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.