dosbo

I seriously hope you don't really think experience is gained by pushing the autopilot button.

Experience is gained by being put in situations, making decisions, and evaluating the outcome. 121 flying is so sanitized that if that is all you have been exposed to it will take a long time to gain decision making skills based on those experiences. Simply sitting in a jet pusing the A/P after rotation doesn't grow any decision making skills. Experience can't always be directly correlated to hours in a seat.

However that being said I believe that it can be generalized that someone who is competive for a mainline position has had much more exposure to experience building situations than someone who is competitive for a regional entry level position. Therefore (in my opinion) the average mainline pilot really does have more experience than the average regional pilot.

27 driver

Wait a second now. Is it not true that most regional pilots are low time and less experienced pilots. Regionals have hired pilots with less than 500 hrs. Although you may be a "professional aviator" you still have very little experience. Experience comes with time in the seat. This is not a shot at you but a general statement. I don't know you or your background. This is an age old argument that will always be a heated one. Regionals take flying from Mainline that was traded away at the expense of the junior guys. Young or new pilots need a place to build experience and time. Where is the happy medium? I don't know. What I do know is that there are pilots out there working for 20K a year. That needs to be fixed.

TMoney

Fortunately I think raising the mins to work at a 121 will help solve this problem. New pilots (less than ATP mins) will be forced into jobs such as 135 charters, freight haulers, flight instructing, etc. Those are the jobs that will build experience and character. Hopefully after putting in their dues doing the less "comfortable" jobs they will be able to bargain for higher pay rates at the airline level because the experience they have deserves the higher pay rate.

27 driver

Amen brother.

Eric Stratton

This has to be one of the dumbest things I've read as to why the pay is low and how to raise it.

There are plenty of people who have gone this route and still sign POS contracts. Just because someone has more time doesn't mean they will fight for a better contract. Look beyond the last hiring spree and you might just find higher time pilots and still low wages.

TonyWilliams

Difficult to follow your statement here, but to be clear; Regionals didn't "take"... mainlines gave away. Mainline pilots, in general, couldn't be bothered with demeaning little planes. And management liked the price.

Not surprisingly, the regionals blossomed with this new machine, the "regional jet".

NERD

To be clear, it had nothing to do with "demeaning little planes". It had to do with the demeaning salary and work rules that certain pilots chose to fly those "little planes" for. When a 727 s/o in his 2nd year made more than the most senior "little plane capt." Not to mention better retirement, insurance, vacation, etc. While a mistake to allow this flying to be farmed out, the economics of the "demeaning little planes" led most to believe they would be a small problem. Who would have thought that the industry ceos would go crazy(ordering thousands(wasting billions)), bankrupting their companies in the process, to save a few dollars per hour on pilot labor. The great rj experiment of the last 10 years is coming to an end. I don't see any major giving up anymore seats and the 50 seaters(while not going away completely) will be much more of a bit player going forward. I guess you might say they served a purpose for the corporations though. Even though the companies that support them all went bankrupt, the bankruptcies allowed them to legally decimate mainline contracts and create large source of jet trained pilots thus ensuring a supply and demand inbalance that will keep downward pressure on wages until the large retirement kick in about 5-7 years. If it were not for the age change we would be making greater improvements now. Age 65 just bought the corps. 5 more years of having a supply vs demand advantage.

27 driver

Mainlines didn't give it away, they traded it away. Big difference. They traded some of the unprofitable routes for QOL, pay etc.

HermannGraf

Is it not true? Not it is not. Not in general.

Yes, some regionals hired people with 500 hours and less but not all. Those who did where the ones that could not attract more qualified pilots.

Other than Eagle It was mostly small Regionals and the amount of people that got on with 500 or less are few.

Some Regionals kept a 1000/100 hour limmit all the time and did not have problems attracting qualified pilots with way more than their requirement.

That is not much lower than the Delta time requirement that is 1200 hours I believe. I know a couple of guys that got employed at NorthWest with 700 hours. No, they are not one of the guys in the news...... those guys had 10 to 20 thousend hours............they are what you call experienced pilots.

Regional pilots have very little experience comparing to what? There are many pilots at the Regionals that joined with some experience. I know many that joined with 1500 to 7000 hours.

Maybe you mean comparing to the experience that mainline guys show like overflying by 150 miles or landing on an active taxi way. If you mean comparing to that then I have to admit that I have not seen that level of experience at the Regionals yet.

I mean..... you are the one saying that in general mainland Pilots are so experienced and so much more than all the inexperienced Regional pilots that just joined the Regionals to gain experinence. I guess experience and good judgement are two different things.

Remmember that Regionals do not do less departures per day than mainland anymore. Some Regionals do 1200 to 1800 departures per day.
We fly in the same enviroment under the same rules and we do a hell of a job most of the time exactly like you guys do.......

Some pilots at the Regionals may for example be furloughs from Mainline, pilots that do not have a 4 years degree, pilots that do not want to sit right seat for 15 to 20 years and pilots that for many other factors had to join a Regional instead mainline but have a lot of experience.

To say that a Regional pilot has less experience just because some Regionals took a few pilots with 500 hours or less is just plain wrong.

Also all those 500 or less hour pilots are today furloughs (having much more than 500 hours) or they have now close to 2000 hours in their seat. There are no 500 to 1000 hour pilots at the Regionals anymore and there will probably never be again. When will you guys at mainland accept that?

To say that there are pilots making 20K a year is also wrong. I do not believe there are any more first or second year Regional pilots out there.

Most of the pilots I fly with at my Regional have 4000 to 18000 hours.

Many (not all) of the super pilots at mainline got into their jobs with very low amount of hours,.......... heck there was a time when mainline took people right after flight school. If you have been in the business long enough you probably remmember that.

JustAMushroom

Middle America will not support the economies of scale required to sustain your business model. We all know the story..we need ticket price increases, but Southwest just eats up marketshare when you do.. etc etc. The sad fact is you can't make cost effective use of the assets flying to places like Lincoln, NB anymore. But RJ's still can. Yes, there may be a loss on the RJ's segment but there will be a bigger loss flying a 73 or Bus into these small/mid markets. In the end, when you can't make money with a full airplane, it is not the fault of a regional partner. Without RJ's tens of thousands of people would not fly into hubs and onto large airplanes. The legacy carriers demise would only be hastened. The RJ future, unfortunantly, is bright.