Originally Posted by
JonathanPilot
I often wonder if people who make these comments are trying to weed out the competition with other pilots..... I am 42 and have finally landed a 121 job flying twin turbines... It is not a huge company but within the next 24 months I expect to pick up 1400 hours of turbine ME time with a 121 operator.... this should position me well to pick up a FO job on one of the regionals which is where I expect to spend the rest of flying career.
If your goal is a regional career, age 40 is not too late.
However...even more so than major airlines, regionals are very unstable and in most cases unlikely to provide a good career home. Here are the reasons...
1. Domicile Portability: Majors can move their contract regional feed around the country with no notice. You might get lucky, but odds are your domicile will change more than once. You have to be willing to commute or move your family. Majors are much more stable in this regard, their hubs rarely change.
2. Feed Contracts are Not Forever: When your contract is up, you have to recompete for your job. In the past these contracts often ran for 15-20 years, but that is changing...majors don't want to be locked in for more than 3-5 years going forward. When it comes time to compete, it will be brutal:
- Regional growth is stagnant or worse. As major compensation drops and fuel prices rise, smaller jets lose their economic advantage. It will likely be a game of musical chairs going forward, with the 50-seat chairs being taken out of play on a regular basis.
- There will always be some new kid at a startup willing to do your job for less, out of self-interest or ignorance. He will be at the bottom of the longevity scale, while you will be at the top. Wonder who will win that bidding war.
- The bottom feeders will always be on the prowl. Hopefully congress will require an ATP, which will help eliminate poverty wages but it will be very difficult to improve or even maintain compensation at the regional captain level. Bottom feeders purposely make working conditions intolerable to ensure high turnover and keep labor costs low...wanna spend your career like that?
3. When things change for the worse you are locked in place by the longevity pay scale, aka golden handcuffs. Switching companies will cost you ALL of your seniority, longevity, pay, vacation, and QOL. Regional bankruptcies are probable over the next ten years...what are going to do if you lose 10-15 years seniority and are faced with starting all over at whatever regional will hire you?
Basically a regional career probably only works if you have one or more of these things going for you:
- You are very lucky.
- You have outside/independent income or at least a backup skill.
- You have enough self-respect to walk away from the industry when it gets bad enough.
- You have no kids and a spouse who has a portable, lucrative career.