Missed the point. How many do you suppose would be in each upgrade class at each airline?

Really? Not really a choice if you ask me. Better QOL and better paycheck, and much better corporate safety go with XJT.

Upgrade is anyone's guess! And all but 15 of our jets are under 5-10 CPAs with UA/CAL with first right of replacement for the 50 seaters if CAL caves on scope (hopefully not).

When did you get hired at XJT? 2004? I've been here for five years and would not tell someone to come work here. Sure it was good back in 2006\2007, I loved it then but this company has taken such a nose dive. The seniority list is stagnant and will most likely remain stagnant after we merge with ASA....Atlantic Southeast Airlines.....Atlantic Southeast, or whatever they call themselves these days. Being stuck as an fo is not fun, and any new hire will be an fo for at least 6-7 years. I've seen my QOL get worse every year, commutabilty getting worse, and crappy pay rates. I have never made over 40k/year and just might this year on 6th year pay.

Colgan/pinnacle/mesaba's new pay rates are pretty close to ours and they have a much brighter future with a diversified fleet. XJT's glory days are gone. I'm curious how you can paint such a rosy picture of a disaster of a company.

Stating the obvious, the number of upgrades will roughly equal the amount of Captains that leave.

Lets say all the majors (combined) hire 20 CommutAir pilots and 300 Xjet/ASA pilots a year.

In 5 years the bottom guy at CommutAir has moved up to number 50 and is already logging PIC. The bottom guy at XJet is only number 2700 and still roughly two years from upgrade.

So you have to ask... is 20/year a reasonable number for Commutair attrition? Is 300/year a reasonable number for XJet attrition?

Looking at it a different way - if Commutair wins flying and adds 10 aircraft, almost everyone on the list gets to upgrade.

If XJet gets 10 aircraft, less than 3% of the first officers upgrade.

It's all luck anyway, but that's how I would be looking at it if my goal was to get to a major.

You start your idiocy with "lets assume the majors hire 13% of the commutair list and 7% of the xjt list". Well no freaking sheit, the commutair FO upgrades faster if a larger percentage of their list is hired.

People that chase a fast upgrade for the purpose of a fast track in life, pretty much pay in the end.

Common sense...............People leave airlines for probably 3 reasons that I can think of. 1st, they quit because it sux; next they get fired; they leave to go to a better airline.

If there is a so called fast upgrade, and none of the "better" companies are hiring very much, well that leaves me with a process of elimination. Sometimes a slow upgrade means people don't want to leave due to something favorable.

I have met several people that thought choosing an employer with a fast upgrade was a good idea. That came back to bite them in the arse.

I know quite a few that chased a fast upgrade and it worked out great for them so far. Turbine PIC is what matters and the sooner you get it, the better your chances are for moving on. Maybe its more luck than anything else, because we all know upgrade times can change overnight.

You think Commute Air will be around in 5yrs?

I doubt xjet will have 300 a year leave more like 100. But the rest of your post is spot on.

XJT and asa are going to merge into the biggest regional out there and the larger an airline the harder it is to get an upgrade. One is that they will have more lifers than any airline our there minus the majors. Two is that they will have over 400 fifty seaters and will be the number 1 target for cuts. Someone said they have a contract with united for 10 years. You know what that doesn't mean crap. Look at the past 3 years when airlines furloughed by the hundreds. They didn't park a single airplane their cuts where in the terms of block hours.

The average aircraft flys around 8 or 9 hours a day. Delta can and probably will cut that down to 5 or 6 hours a day come this fall so asa will be overstaffed and if oil stays high then united will start to cut as well and they will cut 3 hours or so per a/c. Pretty soon 20% of your block hours are gone and then you go from flying 90 hours a month and getting called on your days off to getting 80 hours and being told to take vacation. Asa and XJT are the next comair/mesa.

Go to colgan they are gonna grow like crazy. When united and delta park asa and xjts 50 seaters they will replace them with colgan saabs and q400s. The new pinnacle is gonna be where its at. They have something like 60 crj 900s! and 30 q400s!

I have no idea. If I knew CommutAir was going away I wouldn't recommend it to the OP.

Turboprops do use less Jet A than 50 seat CRJs though.