Delta easier from Skywest or Endeavor
 

I had just finished IOE at SW when EDV called for interview. I could use the extra money but not at the expense of career progression. How long is reserve time at EDV most Jr base? Any advice is welcome.

It's all about the strength of your resume. But hear you are guaranteed an interview, there you aren't. And for those uninformed, getting the interview is not easy. Even with an internal rec it's crazy hard to get called. Your might end up with a slight edge here because of how integrated we are with Delta's systems and culture. Plus the company is putting together an internal prep class to help with the interview (in addition to the leadership class for the SSP guys).


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Only come here if it will behoove your QOL. Otherwise it doesn’t matter where you go, it all depends on YOU and what kind of candidate you are in the eyes of Delta.

While YES, I agree that you shouldn't sacrifice SIGNIFICANT qol to come here, if you're someone who might have a harder time standing out from the crowd, it might benefit you to do the guaranteed interview here.

Average GPA, no military, no volunteer experience, no check airman, no instructor, a couple failures.... You might not ever get a call somewhere else, at least here you can get a shot.


But, if you can live in base somewhere else do that!

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I ran into a Skywest Captain yesterday and he was telling me that Skywest runs their PBS, awards their schedules, and then adds involuntary straight pay "company need" trips on top of their PBS awarded schedule. Evidently for this guy, they put 2 trips right on top of a stretch of days off he needed and was awarded off in PBS.

Their open time pays either 115%, 130% or 150% while all of ours is 150% and often 200%. Not to mention our pay rates are $25+ an hour more at straight pay.

We complain about our 4.5 hour day room requirement, apparently Skywest's is 6 hours.

I agree living in base is awesome but it sounded to me like the QOL of life here is sooooo much better.

Frankly I couldn't believe what he was saying with regard to what kind of treatment they get. Keeping in mind they don't have a contract at all, so there's no union protection from any of it.

Pick a regional you could tolerate for 10+ years because you never know when that 2.5 year touch and go turns into 15.

QOL will have to wait in my case since I have to commute regardless of the Airline. What worries me is career progression. It's no secret SW compensation sucks, however I can progress fairly quick. What's the estimated time from 1st week of training to holding a line at EDV?

That all depends on equipment and base. By progression, do you mean making CA or do you mean getting to DL?

Good question, yes upgrading and getting 1k PIC time. I'm aware many majors hire FO's but getting that CA experience sounds like a necessary requirement just in case it doesn't happen before then.

I know people who went to a regional with a long upgrade time because " majors will hire you without pic" four years later they still haven't upgraded or been hired by a major, and the reality is setting in with them that you are better off with the pic than without it, especially if the economy tanks again.

Now to your actual question about getting a line and your thousand hours here. It took me 20 months to get a thousand hours, I averaged 18 to 19 days off per month every month since I got a line. I worked as little as possible and maximize my time at home. I know several people who got the Thousand hours in 13 to 15 months. Our Reserve time right now is fairly long, and based on the things I've heard about our hiring and growth plans a new hire now should expect to be on reserve for a a not-insignificant amount of time. Probably in the 6th to 8th month range even in a junior base. Of course, all subject to change. Could go up could go down. I was on reserve in 2016 for less than a month. A January 2017 hire was on reserve for almost a year.

That being said, a year two FO here can make 70k without bonuses and average 15 days off per month doing it. 2018 so far I'm averaging 105 hours of credit with 18 days off every month. Pick my holidays, all trips commutable, pick my overnights, pick my Captains.



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I will say for now 9E is a decent place-as good as any regional can be for quality of life and commuting. The pay is tops and they treat you like an adult.

9E is currently fat on FOs, hopefully getting ready for more growth, so getting to CA quick is a challenge, depending on base and equipment. A good place to be based to get lots of flying today could be totally dead in a month. No predicting it.

At OO you will most likely fly more but make less and have a terrible work environment. If growth comes to 9E as predicted, the flight time and CA should come quicker.

Everything changes so fast at the regionals these days. My advice is to stick with or go to a regional you can live with and easily commute to work, in case you get stuck there. Stuff happens. War, recession, training failures, family issues lock you in, DUI, altitude bust, illness? You never know what can cause you to get "stuck" at the regional level.

Right now the DGI program is an unknown variable. We won't know if it actually works for at least a year, so don't bank on that.

As far as OO, I am surprised their wages and QOL have stayed so low for so long. Somethings gotta give there or that west-coast base dream won't be enough to staff their current flying.

Thanks for the insight. I envy your QOL, and I'm sure you've worked hard for it. But I'm in my early 40's, just getting started on 121 so can't waste any time. I want QoL (and better pay) but that's for a later time if I intend to progress. Precisely for all the things you said, i rather byte the bullet at a regional to get those 1,000 pic than jump to a major, wait years for upgrade and risk getting a furlough with no PIC time.

Seems that from indoc to line could take about a year. I think i'm gonna painfully have pass on the interview.

It already has. XJT wouldn’t be getting 20 CR2s if OO could staff them...

One additional piece to ponder before you pass. How close are you to a base? Our long call reserve makes reserve much more tolerable, and in the near-future, it'll be 30% of reserve lines for at least six months. If you can make two flights (or the drive) in a twelve hour period, then you can sit reserve at home. You won't fly as much, but you'll be home, which makes not flying much more tolerable.

If sitting reserve in base, then you can't be called for 5am reserve on your first day if you're holding PM reserve, either. That's one more day at home every sit.

Either he didn’t know what he was talking about or you miss understood.
CN is a thing, but how you explained it is more incorrect than correct.

That's a good point. Reserve will be much more bearable with more LCR. But the company can always increase the number of SCR [emoji848]

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Right now it seems to be a good time to be at a wholly owned. With the various programs I would expect that to continue. I would recommend 9E, but it's all your choice. It's tough to leave a place right when you started too. Your last sentence doesn't really make sense to me, but I think you're worried about getting furloughed from a regional wit no PIC? I don't think that's really a plausibility at 9E. My last understanding is upgrade tends towards the FAA minimums now but I don't know if FOs are actually fighting over open time either.

I just wish they'd make lcr a 14 hour call-out.

Care to enlighten us or do you prefer to just declare “you’re wrong!” without facts? The guy is looking for information and you’ve provided nothing.

If your PBS bidding properties are too restrictive for your seniority, PBS will award you a trip that you did not bid for and it will code it CN (company need). For example, if you are junior and you said “bid avoid all ISN overnights” and PBS is building your line and that’s all that’s left because the other trips were awarded to those senior to you, then you will get a CN.

That would be helpful for sure. I'm just watching the writing on the wall, give it a few years and I bet we'll be 70% LCR and 30% short call.

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Ha.
You want me to explain oo PBS to a person who has never used AOS PBS? I can’t get people who have actually used the system to understand how it works.
Fact?

My guess would be it works like a credit push does in the system 9E uses, just with a notation that tells you that the credit push is why you were given a particular rotation.


That said, you stated there was a better way to explain it but without explaining anything.

Thanks guy, another helpful post. Fact

I dissented to third hand information offered on an anonymous forum with first hand knowledge. Sorry I made you cry.
Hope this helps.

He mentioned the tiers of their PBS and I explained our credit push at 9E, it didn't sound like the same thing.

He said his first tier PBS was basically only "these days off" and that the company need trips were pushed into that time.

He also mentioned he tried to swap into trips later in the month and was denied and put trips on the trade board with additional $ for pickup and no takers.

I might have misunderstood but it sounded way worse than our credit push at 9E and if you had to you could probably trade with open time or post additional $ on the trade board and get someone to fly it.

Sounded worse than 9E to me.

I don’t know what a credit push is as we don’t have that. CN’ing is BS yet I can understand why it exists. It also unfortunately blatantly violates seniority. It also stops happening around 25% relative bid seniority. I haven’t been CN’d in years. The “Company need” phrase makes it sound important while in reality the company needs all trips to be covered.
CN is an efficiency function tool of pbs (not company manipulated directly) that might put a legal pilot on a given trip regardless of any pilot whose line is still solving bid preferences. This really starts happening after the system has solved about 40% of the bidders then craps itself trying to get the last 40% full lines in the most efficient way possible. It reduces the number of partial line holders we have each month and reduces the number of pilots we need per plane.

As far as not being able to swap to an open time trip later on in the month is also an issue affecting qol but for all the obvious reasons he should know the answer from CS is going to be no.
Then as far as no other pilots picking up his trip for the $ posted Im guessing he didn’t incentivize enough.

I might be jaded now, I hear a lot of crying from people who are new to the industry. Like nobody told them we work holidays and your sons birthday. “I’m not flying on reserve” “now I can’t get weekends off”

If you (they) can’t hold the day off you need then pony up or call out emergency.

First hand knowledge would be credible if you tried to give any information. Instead you elected to show how much you know by declaring the post wrong and saying nothing else. You could be right, but you gave no backup and then later said you couldn’t even explain it to someone at OO. Seems you’re “firsthand knowledge” is lacking. So no, it didn’t help.

No need to apologize, I care a lot less about what you say than you think I should

Well that all sounds quite awful.