Originally Posted by KZ1000Shaft
I stand partially corrected, fly as much as you can if you are one these PFT minimum hour brdge program pukes so that you can gain a little experience and become less of a danger to the general public. Regional hopping you will just end up at the bottom of someone elses seniority list, and doing probation all over again with probation pay isnt my idea of fun. Besides that, where are you going to go? Some other regional for low pay, long hours, and a long upgrade? Right now most places have a very long or even indefinite upgrade. Just because the most junior captain somewhere is 4 years does not mean the upgrade time is currently 4 years. Next year, the most junior captain may be 5 years. Most regionals right now are not expanding. No new planes, no new seats. Combine that with majors not hiring, the more senior guys are also not moving on, once again not freeing up a seat. About the only place you will find a quick upgrade is someplace flying BE1900s, and that is usually from people leaving the sh!tty work environment/sh!tty pay from there.
As for the #1 FO, there have been captain bids at eagle (although only a few) durring the last couple of months. Many guys would rather sit at the very top of the FO list getting a much better QOL insted of making only a couple more dollars and being on reserve. And with really no major hiring, where are they going to go once they get some turbine PIC time?
Take a deep breath, drink some beer, and relax. I've explained earlier why eagle may suit some people.
You seem to a be a little bit jealous of the guys hired at 500TT. I had a few buddies get hired on at eagle with that time, none of them PFT'd to do it. Sorry to disappoint you. Oh btw, most left for greener pastures as eagle didn't have a training contract.
If one had gone to eagle in 2001-2002 or gone to ANY other regional carrier sans ACA, they'd be a captain. At eagle they'd be a semi senior FO. Even if they jumped ship 2 years later they'd be CA's if they had gone to Xjet, Chautauqua/Republic, AWAC to name a few.
People not going anywhere? Maybe not if they're at eagle. There's been CA's that have left my airline in the last 6-8 months for a lot of different places including FedEx, UPS, CAL, netjets, flexjet, citation shares, jetblue, frontier, airtran, southwest, etc.
without PIC time you don't stand much of a chance at moving on to bigger and better. at least with it, there's a "slight" chance
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