greygoose

What reginal has you making more than $100k at 3 years guarantee? The only comparison is QOL issues. You may be a line holder and pu trips at the regionals, but it’s not guaranteed. Last i’ve seen SWA have been complaining how hard it is to pu trips.
Don’t get me wrong, SC should be paid more but QOL is a bigger issue. 10 days rsv sucks, in base is doable being tethered to the phone blows donkey balls. Commuting does not do as well although some pilots still commute even with the lousy rsv.
Facts are, SC is 100k guarantee at three years is avail to everyone that has been hired since 2015. It just might not be ideal of QOL as it should be.
Training contract is a joke, keep the training contract for all I care. I’ll take a raise over offering someone newbie to not have a training contract. If they are going to leave, more power to them. Go to the Majors, the extra pay should help cover your agreement.
Don’t sell out the young, give them a break on rsv. Throw them a bone and at least let them pu opentime on rsv. Let them decide if they want to be abused.
3 year Regional Captains
Skywest $67,500
Endeavor $83,700
Envoy $65,700
Republic $72,900
Horizon $66,600

Viking6

Not very genuine to compare at min guarantee. Republic and Endeavor both make more then 100k year 3, if they credit 90-95 hours. That very easy to do at Republic. I’m year 4 pay at Republic, and easily broke 100k. Oh and averaged 14 days off a month. The soft money (free uniforms, luggage, parking, free dental, etc) add up to even more. Oh and that number doesn’t include per diem, which averages about 550 a month. 10 days off on reserve is horrible. Very few regionals are at 10 (Republic has 12).

hoover

100k 1st yr at sw is doable but you're working more than your line. 2nd yr just flying your line us easily over 100k.
Open time is still there we just hit te major slowdown after summer and people are freaking out not being able to get their 180 tfp a month. So open time is slim for anyone without senority. But extra flying is always there just not the same as summer.
Holding a line within a yr is doable at cetrain bases. Nevertheless min days off a month is 15.

pilotlyfe

Hey guys,

Just wondering, I'm from and currently live in MSP. What does Sun Country think of 135 turboprop time? Currently got a fair amount in the 1900 and Metro. Also can you have a restricted ATP or does it have to be unrestricted? It doesn't specify on their website. What's competitive at the moment? I see that they lowered their reqs.

Thanks in advance to anyone who responds.

CaptYoda

I think you have to go through airlineapps to apply to them. Since you live in MSP maybe you can visit their offices tactfully and speak to someone or network to find someone who works for them. I am sure they will be partial to someone local.

beech1980

Honestly they don’t care about what plane it’s in anymore. I heard they hired a guy that had not flown in 8 years. What ever the website says for minimums is what they will require. I’d be willing to be they will drop it to part 121 minimums which is 1500 hours. They are extremely desperate to hire. I wouldn’t sweat it. If they call you back you are pretty much hired, it’s becoming the norm.
They can not retain the pilots they need with a sub regional level contract. Don’t believe the hype about the growth. It can’t happen if potential employees do their homework and understand what they would be getting into. The growth will be on your backs doing 6 day trips and TDY to temporary bases for 50% pay. Good luck.

pilotlyfe

Thank you for replying and yeah it doesn't necessarily seem like the greatest option.

Also, they already dropped it to 121 mins. That's why I asked on here. The reqs are now 1500 TT, 250 PIC, and 50 ME.

Buyer Beware

Yea you'll be fine without any 121 time. They're too desperate to be picky anymore and you would be far from the first to make it here without any 121 time. Unless you have more DUI's than the D.O. Welcome to the unofficial Southwest airlines flow program!

ChrisPilot1

Is it really this bad at sun country? A lot of people here commenting that everyone is getting 5-6 day trips?

Also what’s this TDY everyone keeps talking about? I realize sun country is trying to grow, am a little scared I’m coming in for the msp bass only to be displaced sometime in the future if they open another base.

What’s the current upgrade time ?

woutlaw

In the last award the most junior CA was 2 years, 1 month IIRC. I started upgrade class after 2 years, 3 months and 8 days.

First year pay is $48/hr, 2nd year FO is currently $71.88 but that goes to $76.19 Nov. 1 and $82.29 Nov. 1, 2019. 14-year FO pay maxes out at $135.10 at the end of the contract.

3rd year CA is $113.73, going to $120.54 Nov. 1 and $130.18 by the time anyone reading this not already hired would get there. 14-year CA pay here tops out at $201.64 at the end of the current contract.

There is still the $20,000 training contract, pro-rated over 18 months. I've had probably a dozen folks I know personally leave before their 18 months was up and the contract didn't stop them from taking jobs at Southwest, Delta, FedEx and United, but YMMV.

Schedules are a mixed bag. I live in base and am back on reserve, so I don't even bother bidding. I'll be getting 10 or 11 days off no matter what, and which 10 or 11 doesn't matter to me.

My last schedule as an FO, just over 2 years seniority, was in April and had 19 days off and one overnight. Granted, I was working every weekend, but... 19 days off.

It didn't take long off of reserve to hold lines with 15-16 days off, but again i'm not picky about my days off. There were also months where I wound up with 12 days off, 72 hours and a bunch of overnights. It just varies.

We do red eyes and there are typically a few pure red eye lines and then it's not uncommon to see a red eye or two sprinkled in among several of the "regular" lines as well.

We do a lot of charter work. This summer we did an incredible amount of charters. Some of the trips were super easy, day flying, some were midnight or 1 a.m. shows, all backside of the clock flying. It's not unusual on reserve to do a fair amount of charter trips.

The multi-day trips we have tend to start early and end late, which isn't great for commuters. There are exceptions, for sure, but hopefully we start seeing more commuter-friendly lines.

There have been no proposals (yet) for temporary basing. Management and ALPA have met once to get the ball rolling on mid-contract talks, but there have been no specific proposals, at least as of today.

TDY has been floated by management when they've been talking to pilots in recurrent, etc..., as has pref bidding, automated trip trades and a bunch of other stuff but your guess is as good as mine when it comes to what they'll formally propose and what they'd be willing to give for it.

Most folks coming from regionals are leaving better contracts in regards to earning soft-time, min days off and some other key work rules. We're about 18 months out from the contract becoming amendable.

The last growth plan I heard was 9 more airplanes in 2019 and another 9 in 2020. Overall the plan is to get to 50-55 and I think we're right around 25-27 full-time airframes right now. (We typically lease around 3-5 airplanes during the winter months to handle peak demand.)

Of those new (to us) airframes we'll own some of them outright, which we've never done before. We're also buying a spare engine, which we've never done before.

We are doing more and more flying that doesn't touch MSP, which again is something fairly new for us. PDX, BNA, STL were all recently announced and the bulk of that flying is seasonal, but in and out of those cities without going through MSP.

We have done something similar out of DFW in the summer for the past few years and a typical pattern there is to do MSP-DFW, then spend three days doing turns out of DFW to Mexico, then do DFW-MSP on the last day, either operating it or as a deadhead. I have no idea if the new cities will be in similar pattern or not.

We farmed out our ground handling at MSP this spring and I don't think anyone would say that it went well. We're moving to DGS for ground handling soon, if we haven't already.

I don't know if all of the above is "good" or "bad." I tried to keep it as neutral as possible. I wish I had a magic bullet answer for everyone thinking about coming here but I don't.

Some folks love it here, some hate it and some are on the fence.

I made the decision to come here because it felt right for me at the time. Until I retire, either from here or from someplace else, i really won't know if it was a good decision or not.

Anyway, hope that helps.

Will