Mesa or PSA?
 

Ok, so here's the rub. I've got a start date with PSA in april. I'm living in Norfolk, and looking at the reserve times for FO and CA and debating jumping ship for Mesa. I'm wondering how much reserve time there is for Mesa, and if DC is a junior base that I could hold for my whole time of employment. Also, how's the company? I'm still reading through the forums to get my own read on what's going on. Just looking for anything direct from you guys.

Thanks

I mean this in the nicest way possible but you’re crazy if you’re going to pass up a regional airline with a solid future with a base in your home town, to commute to Mesa. ORF reserve isn’t that long.

Just looking at options. Right now, and still not on the seniority list, it's looking like 10 months of reserve. Then, after the upgrade, it's looking like a year on reserve. So, add that up and it's roughly two years on reserve, which nominally nets me maybe ~500 hours of flying on both sides? Just seems like two years of wasted time. A commute to a line seems better than a home town base on reserve for two years. Like I said, just looking at options.

No matter what their propaganda claims: Mesa has one of the lowest pay scales around, and they run their people pretty hard.
It's the sort of place you go if no one else will talk to you...

But they have a CPP for some reason, unlike Republic or almighty SkyWest.

Try non revving on American while all the PSA pilots have priority over you, but not only them, flight instructors in their pipeline program have priority over you, retirees, family members, etc. A Jet Blue guy gets to the gate before you? Guess what?
You are complaining about reserve times... Theres people on here who waited 8+ years to upgrade, many others who were on reserve for years. Some had to have 5000 hours just to get noticed.
Yes things have changed, and yes, it would be ideal to be a line holder as soon as possible. You are severely underestimating the "suck" of non reving as a commuter working for a 3rd party regional, while you could be living on base. Perhaps it is simply something you just need to experience, unfortunately you have to decide now.

Live in base for a company owned by AA that they want to succeed or commute/drive far to literally the worst 121 job there is, tough call!!


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If you come to Dulles, you’ll fly too much and won’t have much control of your schedule. It’ll get old not getting the days off you want. You’ll be able to upgrade quick there, but then you’ll be on reserve for a long time. Better to be on reserve where you live.

Don’t come for the cpp, it’s pretty much a joke.

PSA's reserve and Mesa's reserve are night and day.

With PSA you'll have - for the most part - the ability to tweak your monthly schedule to suit your social life/family life.

At Mesa they run so thin on reserves, you'll be unable to adjust your schedule.

I'd choose PSA

Commuting nearly drove me away from aviation. However, it also pushed me hard to move up in aviation. Theres something to be said about not getting comfortable at a regional.

Ah, that's a bit overstated about PSA's reserve. I can't speak to Mesa and it's reserve, but the ability to "tweak" your monthly schedule is solely based on the reserve grid being green, and for most bases there are only about 5 or 6 days being green. So you better hope that day you need off is green, and likely since there are so few of those days you'll be competing with other guys that want "tweak" their schedule as well.

There are PSA folks leaving for Mesa...blows your mind! Why? They aren’t flying enough. Pick your evil, regionals are all the same. Get your time and get out. Unless there’s some reason you can’t get a job at a legacy without flow, then go wholly owned and wait your 5-8 yrs. If you want to sit at home on reserve and not fly nor built time, PSA is a great choice. If you want to fly your butt off, be on reserve for month & commute, go anywhere else. But if your choice is Mesa for IAD...consider Commutair...?

There are a couple reasons I'm thinking of this. Every year spent on reserve in the regionals is costing about $300k+. Where does that number come from? Every check you spend on regional time is time you're missing in the legacy world. The checks on the end are the ones that you don't get by delaying your start at a legacy. The checks in the beginning are always going to be there.

I'm a former Navy H-60 guy with about 1600TT and all of the wickets met for my ATP. I've got every military box checked as far as stan/instrument/instructor and all of that stuff. I've got a clean record with no skeletons buried in a closet somewhere.

I haven't taken a look at commutair, but will be doing so.

Can anyone tell me if Mesa's IAD base is junior? Someone seemed to mention a month of reserve time there, can anyone confirm?

Thanks

If you’re a helo guy you’re looking at 3-5 years before you’re competitive for a major if current trends remain the same (depending on how frontiers Helo hiring program goes). That’s a long time to commute.

Psa or mesa
 

I've worked at both so can provide more insight then most. I'm currently at Mesa and while I have nothing negative to say about MESA, the choice in your situation is a given. PSA hands down. If nothing else the ability to not commute is huge and is the deciding factor. PSA has a better contract and a flow should you need it(6-8 years). Once you do put in that reserve time and hold a line, the SAP is amazing. It does not exist anywhere else in the regionals. Not at that level anyway. Since daddy American has deep pockets and is not cheap like Mesa, you also have much better tools in the cockpit. Ie PDC, D-Atis, georef on taxi charts, etc. As others mentioned you have much better priority when you are non revving. The only benefit I would say at Mesa is that management is more laid back. The guys at PSA have sticks up their as** and think their ****** doesn't stink. Note I said management, the pilots and crew are great to work with. As far as IAD you will get it right out of training if that's what you want. It is the most junior for CRJ's. You may be on reserve for a month or two(which is nothing) but if you are, they will use the crap out of you. I hear what you are saying regarding the 300K but there is also a lot to be said about quality of life. I was prior Navy as well and didn't think I would mind the commute but it wears on you. If you ignore my advice we can at least split the referral bonus for Mesa. :) PM me if you have other questions. Happy to help.

If you get any reserve in IAD, it's because you finished training after PBS bidding or you messed up your bid. Winter is almost over, there is way more flying than there are FOs to do the flying.

Don't be short sighted, going to Mesa because you'll fly more is a terrible reason. Chillax, you'll get your time and a job offer in due time. Mesa is where guys go after they've been fired or failed out of training from everywhere else.

I wouldn’t recommend Mesa for IAD until the expiring CPA with United and the Dulles CRJs is renewed.

At this point, I wouldn’t recommend IAH for the EJET either. They are nearing expiration as well.

This might be the case for some, not the majority. Plenty of top notch pilots at Mesa.

I know of 3 one failed from republic the others multiple incidents and Checkride failures.

Mesa pilots are some of the best pilots I have ever met.

There are great guys at every company, I’ve been thankful for Mesa jumpseats/crews in the past, but don’t go there until your options elsewhere are exhausted.


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This is rather a unique time in aviation where people actually get multiple offers and can "choose" their regional. This was not the case when I was hired at Mesa, nor the case for anyone there hired 2013-2014ish and before. I was never able to hand pick any aviation job, it was always an "opportunity" I had to jump on.
Is Mesa more willing to give people a chance? Certainly, and I am glad for it. I only had 100 hours of currency in the past six months when I was hired.

Mesa offers a job - not a career.

Keep paying fast-food wages, make it nearly impossible to adjust one's schedule, and become an airline that very few legacies (or other upper-echelon carriers) hire from . . . and boom - this is now your career.

You have to REALLY love flying to do this job for (almost) free - AND know that you may end up stuck here.

Times have changed. Regionals no longer have a storage room full of applications that they can threaten you with.

You are entirely incorrect about any stigma coming from working at Mesa. There is none.

No one said anything about a stigma (unless I missed it). I doubt there's any kind of stigma attached.

I just find it more than just interesting that so few Mesa pilots get hired by legacies - or SWA, Fedex, UPS, etc.

I seem to recall an ALPA rep. proving this a year or so ago - and taking a ton of heat for doing so. If it's not a stigma - then it's intentional.

It's collusion.

Because it sure-as-hell isn't a result of chance

Mesa is an opportunity like anywhere else. Get your time and experience, and move on. No one gets "stuck." People decide to stay or pass up other opportunities thinking they will be better off. You are only going to settle for the "big five?" That's your decision, just remember that it used to be the "big eight" or what ever, and they had flight engineer positions to fill as well.
Fewer airlines to move into, with fewer positions available. In the past people had far more choices and thus more chance of moving into mainline.
Self reflection and a willingness to try something completely different to escape the regionals is well advised for those who want out of it.

Try going to a heart surgeon who makes 30K a year - but when he got into the medicine field, he expected to make at least 300K. Sure, he could change horses midstream and do something else. It's not what he spent the better part of his life training to do.

Our skills are worth a LOT more then what they pay us at the Regionals. It's people like you who justify this - that keep the rest of us down.

Maybe you should try something different? Then you wouldn't be in the way of the rest of us who are trying to make a living commensurate with our experience and education

That’s no ****ing excuse to justify the ridiculous pay. We are flying mainline routes and their passengers with the mainline name painted on the side!!! Why does the mainline crew at the gate next door deserve 3-4x the pay we make to fly the exact same route???

I did more to help your cause by moving on than you are doing for yourself by staying. I find it comical that a Mesa person is blaming a former Mesa person for working at Mesa for the same reasons they are for currently.
If you are not happy with the pay, go somewhere else... Like I did...

Seriously. It’s the number of pax. 3 x the pax 3 x the pay. If mainline absorbed the regionals then we would have different pay for the smaller metal. Same story as B Scale from the 80s and 90s. It’s why the regionals started. The main advantage to absorption would be the seniority to bid up. That’ll never fly with alpa unless we were stapled to the bottom of the list and then new hires would be flying the smaller metal. But if they wanted to come in on a 737 or a320 they can’t because that would be jumping the line. So it’s just not going to happen.

Are regional pilot rates still low? Yes. Should they be increased 200-300 percent to match mainline? Probably not.

Regardless, a 121 pilot should be making six figures especially considering inflation

When you defend your master - you will never escape the plantation. You will also make it harder for others to escape as well.

Clearly, you skipped Economics 101

I don't disagree but I do think that an ERJ-145 pilot not making as much as a 777 pilot is NOT unreasonable.

That's a lot of negative logic in that statement but I think you get my drift.

The 777 first class cabin alone produces more revenue than the whole ERJ145 to it's owner.

Yeah, it's "the same job", but the other one produces way more money to the owner than the other one.

Clearly not. I'm quite well educated in business and economics. I'm not defending the regional model. I was describing it. Economics isn't necessarily "fair" or "right" but it is what it is.

The point I was trying to make is that having a payscale based on the size of the plane isn't really unfair. We all KNOW that the size REALLY doesn't matter as far as complexity of the job, emergency procedures, etc etc... it's all the same. So I can see the argument that if it's all the same we should be paid all the same.

HOWEVER, there is ANOTHER point of view and it's not ours. That doesn't make the other point of view WRONG - it's just another aspect of the situation. The company has to make money. Did you know the biggest determining factor in the cost index we fly from the ACARS is the captains salary? Higher paid captain - higher cost index in order to reduce the cost to the company. The company is here to make money. That's what it's purpose is. WE in turn have jobs when we support that goal. It's in OUR mutual best interest. I really dislike the adversarial relationship that exists in some circles. The company is controlling costs. We are a cost. That's not WRONG. If you don't like it - leave. Vote with your feet. Our goal is to get properly compensated. That's NOT WRONG EITHER! But doing so by biting the hand that feeds you is short sighted and will ultimately fail. Anyway back to the point. An equitable pay scale across the board might be a standard base pilot pay then additional pay based on pax capacity (weight capacity for cargo) of the aircraft. That's fair to the pilots/crews and fair to the company. They make more money on a larger capacity aircraft. There's arguably more responsibility as we are responsible for more lives/cargo so we should be compensated more for the larger metal.

In REALITY this is KIND of how it works. Not entirely or intentionally but the math works out that way. Bigger metal, paid more.

Negative, sir.

It comes down to simple supply-and-demand. Demand for people and cargo to be moved is growing. Supply - pilots dumb enough to spend 150K in school for a 30K/year regional FO job - is dwindling. Throw in the weak work-ethic of the current generation, and we as pilots should be demanding MUCH better compensation and work rules. The legacies are saving a king's ransom on our pay scales, so don't give me the bullsh*& about the 'airlines need to make money.'

They are. They're currently laughing their way to the bank.

They're laughing even harder at the regional pilot group

Shipmate,

PM me, pls.

I will give you the real gouge.

R/
Mr. Wizard
YG83

Except a corporate pilot blows that idea out of the water especially a contract gulfstream guy despite the fact they usually are paying for their own types and recurrents. As others said, it's supply and demand.