Originally Posted by sqwkvfr

I would recommend ruling out Republic (rjet) immediately.

I can't begin to tell you how much the lunacy of outstation basing will destroy your quality of life....even if you live in base.

Reports are almost always 0445-0600 and you'll get home sometime between 10PM and midnight...and somewhere in there you have to try to adjust your sleep schedule and fend off the sleeping disorder that you will almost certainly develop.

Crew members living in one of rjet's many outstation bases are finding that if they switch to a hub base -which are very few and very senior- and commute to the outstation in which they live, they are actually spending more time at home, get more productive trips and have a better QOL.

The 170 is a real "g-whiz" plane, but it's not the superjet that some think it is...and flying it isn't going to help your resume. If you're not careful with the e-jets, they'll violate you faster than you can say "Epic load anomaly."

Rjet has NO cancellation pay, unless they reassign you...and guess what, they won't reassign you if there is a reserve pilot available SO THEY DON'T HAVE TO PAY YOU. One crew recently had a 4-day trip that, after cancellation, credited just over 9 hours of pay. If you do the math, the 2nd-year FO made $67 a day BEFORE taxes on that trip.

If you are awarded an 83 hour line, and after trip trades you end up with 75 hours for the month, guarantee is adjusted down, in this case, 8 hours....so if your month goes completely sideways and you drop below the 75 hour contractual guarantee through no fault of your own, your NEW guarantee is 68 hours! Nice, huh?

You'll be working with miserable FAs who were recruited at events in their home cities (many of them hubs where we don't have a base) and then shoved in some BS outstation and told that if they commute, they're "just not gonna last." Not realizing that they were gonna have to move for rjet's crappy FA pay, they end up quitting or being miserable until they can find another job...which, nowadays, can take some time.

Every day at rjet is like the first day in business..all departments are operated with skeleton staff at super-low wages so turnover is high, incompetence is rampant, accountability is non-existant and the third party vendors that the company uses for thing like crew hotels are the some of the worst, most frustrating and least effective people you'll ever deal with. If your flight cancels and you have to stay in a city other than originally planned, be prepared to sit at the airport for 3+ hours before you get a hotel room.

The VP of labor relations is from a law firm that specializes in busting unions....that law firm, BTW, is on full-time retainer with rjet along with another union-busting firm.....and this anti-labor attitude permeates this organization's support staff from top to bottom and seems to guide management's hand in every decision or policy ("how can we make the union look bad here?"). They've tried so hard to make crew members hate their jobs (because their business model relies on a revolving-door style labor force, thus keeping crew members junior (read:cheap)) that most people you talk to are completely miserable. The consensus amongst crew members if that Bedford didn't do his "Undercover Boss" PR stunt on the fixed fee side of the business is because they wouldn't have been able to air most of what his employees would have said about him.

When hiring opens up at larger carriers, there will most likely be a mass exodus of pilots, but don't expect this to be to your advantage: There are between 500-700 of our 2300 or so pilots who are senior captains that live in one of these outstation bases who are never gonna leave -an unintended consequence of outstation basing-....they have their houses, kids, wives/husbands and nearly $100K jobs -firmly ensconced in an outstation city- and they're not going anywhere. Most of the movement will junior captains and FO...many of whom are now very experienced and are more than capable of going straight to where ever without needing to upgrade at rjet. My point?: the hiring boom at the majors will not help lower upgrade times at rjet in the same manner as other regional carriers. If you are looking for a quick upgrade, rjet is not gonna be the place.

The union and the company have been in contract negotiations for 5 years...the company's ludicrous stall tactics include telling the mediator that they just don't know when they are gonna be available for the next mediation session. Rjet is dragging their feet in an attempt to keep their current contract in place in order to mitigate the higher labor costs that came about as the result of the age 65 retirement rule.

Rjet should be dead last on your list. I know you were looking for positive feedback, but there is very that one could say about rjet that is good.

.....And I'm gonna say it again: All other things being equal (which they are not) outstation basing makes rjet the worst regional in it's "peer group" for which to work.

I really wish that someone would have explained this to me before I made the mistake of accepting their offer...

Choose wisely, everyone...if you see or know an rjet pilot, ask him or her if you should work there....I'd be willing to wager that 90% of the pilots that have been there longer than a year will tell you to look elsewhere first.

Originally Posted by hockeypilot44

Nice to see things haven't changed. I remember 7 years ago a bunch of CMH first officers were holding out for CMH captain so they didn't have to commute. They were awarded CMH captain finally. In upgrade training the company decides to open a CVG base. These pilots were displaced to CVG captain which was a lower paying 135 base without ever flying a trip as CMH captain. They asked to return to CMH first officer as they did not want to commute. The company would not let them. They ended up in a position they never bid.

Originally Posted by Ronaldo

If you live out of a RV, you can't even keep up with the displacements unless you have a driver positioning your RV while you're on your last trip in base every month.

Originally Posted by sqwkvfr

...and I can confirm this given the company's history of giving crew members no (or grossly inadequate) time to move.

Originally Posted by Oskeewowow

You mean like HNL-LGA in a week?

Nahh, the company never does stuff like that!

Originally Posted by sqwkvfr

Along those lines and more recently, a LGA captain was involuntarily displaced via a VACANCY BID to CMH -despite having never bid for it- and was very surprised to learned of his "award" from a fellow crew member....no one from the company bothered to notify him.

Originally Posted by Zidac

From all that I am reading here, Republic certainly sounds like a terrible company to work for.

How does Compass compare to XJT and SKW?