Jumplane

Hello everybody,
I was wondering if someone could give me some opinion about those two Regional.
I live in Chicago, so what airlines will be my best option considering that Im not chasing any fast upgrade but "QOL".
which one will be my best bet? and why?

Thanks and Happy New Year!

penaltybox

Dont know we have enough of these "vs" threads? Its not hard to do your own research.

Eaglepilot84

Go to Skywest, they'll love you over there.

Saabless

Envoy for sure. One interview and you're set for a career eventually with AA without ever having to commute, got to LCC after a few years at a regional, and eventually work for one of the best airlines in the world. Your quality of life and marriage is more important than chasing this career around.

rickair7777

Flow through agreements have a VERY, VERY bad historical track record for success (ie they tend to get cancelled before many people flow).

But in this case with so many retirements pending I would research the details of the flow agreement and the projected MANDATORY retirements at AA and based on that seriously consider Envoy. It will be important that enough senior envoy pilots move out of the way to allow you to upgrade (required prior to flow). Make sure there are not a bunch of eagle lifers who are going to sit tight and constipate your career plan.

For comparison, as mandatory retirements kick in over the next few years it will probably be safe to assume that upgrade on average at the various regionals will take three years, followed by two years of flying to get 1000 hours. That is no longer the assured path to the majors but it still seems to be an important career milestone and it's one that you have no control over once on a seniority list, so it's worth considering before you pick a regional.

But even without flow, there should be plenty of job opportunities for pilots from other regionals. That's why the flows have become so popular all of sudden...the majors know they're going to eventually end up losing their selectivity and having to hire just about everyone anyway, so they may as well get some negotiating capital out of it.

Squallrider

Many question marks with envoy, how long to sit reserve? Upgrade? Changing fleet etc. those are all questions the envoy people can answer.

As for Skywest, ORD is a junior base for CRJ and ERJ. There's something going on here, we have 100+- lines and 200+ FOs on the 175 so more flying seems all but certain. If you want the CRJ you'd probably hold a line out of training in ORD, 175 is a question mark just because we seem to be overstaffed, no airline just runs 100% reserve tho so if your heart is on the 175 then you may be reserve. Personally I'm on reserve in base and it's great, if you can make the finances work. We have so much reserve I d get called too often, I've yet to be sent to another base for reserve too (touch wood), you can always put call first as your preference and fly more often on reserve if you like.

I only know what I see on here about envoy and there are people jumping ship constantly. The flow is really nice tho, I have 2 friends at envoy that are counting on it after a bust check at envoy, that being said the training is really good there on all accounts I've heard. (People fail at Skywest too so I'm not saying don't go there because people fail).

Skywest upgrade is 4 years, I believe it'll drop to 3 in the next two years, just depends on how many 200s we lose, Skywest management does have a knack for finding them new homes (they are motivated to do so because we own a lot of them a a pose to mainline)

Crawl

Upgrade not required to flow.

Crawl

ORD at envoy is junior.

PilotJ3

The only ones required to upgrade are people in the 824 group, which I'm sure the new CAs are not part of that group.

The Protectes Pilots and other flow groups does not have to upgrade. I would expect FOs staying at the top of the list if they are 1-2 yr away from flowing.

rickair7777

That simplifies things then.