People put too much emphasis on the 121 aspect of an applicant’s time. What they want is command turbine/jet time. Most people getting hired at the legacies have 121 time simply because that is where most of the time building jobs are. There are plenty of military pilots hired with zero 121 time. There aren’t as many corporate pilots hired, not because they are not desirable, but because it can be a really slow path to the airlines, and far fewer people go that way which results in a smaller pool of applicants. The important thing is the quality of your application, not what chapter of the FAR’s you built your time.

Two things.

1.) If you don’t have a degree, grab it. California Coast University is all online, self paced, and they give you a TON of credits for your aviation licenses. I had about a years worth of community college credits and enough flying credits to where I only needed 30-40 more credits. Cost is about $10k and you pay as you go.

2.) Don’t trust United. Do not hold out hope for United. Yes, I got f*cked in the CPP, but turns out, it was the best thing to ever happen to me. United doesn’t give two craps about you, ExpressJet, their passengers, or anything other than the bottom line (Commutair, ‘nuff said). All they’re doing is putting one last carrot out there to make sure there schedules are covered through Fall.

Atlas is hiring, K4 is hiring (with a Boeing type), and of course UPS/FedEx are the golden gems and they’re hiring.

If we’ve flown together and you have a Boeing type, PM me if you’re looking for a job at K4. G4***

Aren't you precious!:D
It was never an "option", especially for reserves. One of the weakest parts of the contract IMHO, not that it matters now. They may have phrased it as you doing a favor for them, but the reality is that if they were out of options and you were getting junior manned, tough noogies. I believe the only legal refusal of an extension was for child care issues. It was lucrative, make no mistake, but at some point the disruption to your life just isn't worth it.

There was a period probably around 2013-2014 where staffing was short and the abuse, especially for reserves, was rampant and mean-spirited. I spent nearly 5 years on reserve (relief line once or twice) after I upgraded and got to see all kinds of shenanigans. Rolled days off were expected. I always packed for two days longer than my reserve commitment. Once had them try to roll me into a THIRD day off (SEVEN total on the road) and refused because I was out of clean underwear. Cancelling deadheads and hotel reservations for pilots that didn't acknowledge changes to schedules, trying to get hotel staff and non-company gate agents and rampers to reassign pilots at outstations. My favorite was having my day off rolled to fly trips in the right seat when FO reserves were available and red flag was not offered to FOs. That happened more than once. When I fought back against it the explanation I was given "We have plenty of CAs available and are short on FOs. And we're not required to offer red flag pay". I loved my time at ExpressJet but make no mistake, there were some dark days, mostly after the acquisition by SkyPest.

All this. ☝🏻 I had an associates degree and finished up a bachelors at CCU in nine months, all online, all at my own pace, for about 7k. Let’s just say the work was, uhh, very easy. Was good enough for Purple.

Good luck moving forward even getting hired at LCC’s like Alaska, Frontier, Jetblue or Spirit without a degree. The line between a Legacy and a LCC has been blurred anyway since they all signed new CBAs. Now there’s hardly any difference, except retirements, now that the Legacies will have to operate like very large LCC’s to gain domestic market share. The need for international widebody flying seems like it’ll be a fraction of what it was before. That’s evident with Airbus increasing their focus on building the A321XLR.

Like XJT.com currently states, you can apply at CommutAir no problem. I wouldn't be surprised if this whole thing has been planned for the past year. Reset the old longevity scale.

CommutAir currently has job openings, and these can be found on the CommutAir Careers page at: https://www.flycommutair.com/careers/.

ExpressJet HR is working with CommutAir and will also feature a link to their Careers page on the XJT.com site. You can reach it through the Human Resources dropdown tab, then click Careers and View Careers, and you will be brought to the single sign-on for the ExpressJet Careers page that will have a link to CommutAir Careers.

That’s even more reason to make sure that people have it. Not having a degree really limits where they can work, and practically eliminates the chances of working where they would like to work.

The good news is the online options have made it much easier for working pilots to finish up where they left off and get a big boost from having ratings. However one day all pilots will have a degree then they will have to add something else to narrow down the stack.

Like a shuttle landings two

uh..... what?