Airline Pilot Central Forums - Changing My Mind (not going to major airline)

Making the decision to transition to a “Major” airline is a very unique and private decision based on personal factors, AKA quality of life issues. I’m sure a SkyWest pilot based in Tucson or Palm Springs where he loves it doesn’t have much incentive to get on where he will probably take a pay cut for a while and commute a two legger, minimum for a few years. But a young, pilot in his twenties should very much be focused on getting up and out, ASAP. This business favors the young (and others but I wont touch that third rail on this go).

When you get on your Regional, the needle is pegged on the, “get my 1,000 pic turb, out the door. On to the career carrier” mark. But as you get older, especially if you got into the game in you late twenties or thirties, the needle moves. It’s not black or white.

I crunched some numbers from APC scales and came up with some base lines. I made some MASSIVE assumptions, basically a perfect career with no furloughs or displacements. Aircraft choice, upgrade time, international over-ride, per diem, training department position premium? Didn’t include the last two. And I used SkyWest, USAir and Delta.

A Sky West pilot, if he got on at 24, and flew his entire career at Sky West will stand to make (very) approximately $3,714,360.00. If that pilot were to be hired by USAir at say 27 then he will make $4,290,360.00. $ 576,000.00 dollars more than if he had stayed at Sky West for the career. Not much to me. If that same pilot didn’t get hired by USAir until 37 will have lost $ 149,760.00 by waiting and staying on Sky West the extra decade.

If that same pilot were to get on with Delta Air Lines at 27, he will stand to make $6,222,840.00 which is $2,508,480.00 more than the career Sky West pilot. And if he were to wait until 37 to get on with Delta, then he would stand to make $4,734,840.00, losing $1,488,000.00 to the extra ten years at Sky West. If you were to wait until 40 to get on with Delta then you would lose $1,666,560.00. And the kicker? If you were to compare the Sky West career pilot with the Sky West pilot who made the leap to Delta at 40? The 40 year old Delta FO will only make an extra $ 841,920.00 when he hits 65. Not chump change but not a massive amount either. And that’s comparing current Delta pay, and all the pay as advertised on APC. It would make zero sense to make the leap to the lesser paid airlines. And I just used Sky West for an example.

You could plug in any CRJ 700 – 900 flying regional and the numbers would be negligibly different. If I find myself at forty – forty plus years old still at my regional, then you know what? More than likely I’ll be that lifer that FO’s will quietly wonder, “what happened to this guy? How do you stay here for that long?” Well, life, economy, oil, wars, furloughs, vagaries of hiring practices, etc, and here you are. I’m not there myself, but it’s not as irrational as can be stated.

And I didn’t get into the instability and looming changes in the winds with the regional’s and their relationship / business structure with their main line partners or the whole pros and cons of scope. Here it was all about the personal choice and thoughts that we all have late at night weighing options and wondering if we’re tracking the right direction. That’s another ball of wax.