2 years upgrade time is about as quick as it gets around the regional industry from my understanding. A CFI who I used to work with who just started at ExpressJet says his upgrade time will be around 8 years.

 

pretty close. compass has a 12/12 hire in upgrade and the next upgrades will be 8/13 hires in Jan.

 

I am always baffled when I meet these 23 year olds who run to ExpressJet in today's day and age when all that airline has is 50 seaters with a 8+ year upgrade.

If you have paid any attention to the industry over the past 10 years, an all 50 seater operation and a long upgrade is the last place I would go.

To me I think saying this is like teaching 1+1=2 to a college finite class, however I'm amazed at how many "kids" looking to get into this industry are completely uneducated on this stuff.

That's being either extremely uneducated or extremely optimistic on about the future at those places.

 

Exactly, well said! I guess some people want to stay at the regionals forever lol. That's why I did some homework such as coming on here mainly looking at upgrade times. Some people roll there eyes at that but I found most of those people who are all about the quality of the contract and what not either don't have a bachelors and can't move on to the majors or are too old to get hired by one of them.

 

And I need to find a new recruiter contact because this one lady is just about the same as a computer answering machine. Trying to see if I can go ahead and get a January class date since I only have 250 hours to go and getting almost 8 hours a day of flying time. But nooooo.

 

Aviation career decisions should be made with a probabilistic mindset.

Contract terms, payrates, and domiciles at a particular carrier cannot be viewed as "fixed." They must be viewed in context of the probability they will continue at those existing levels.

A carrier full of 50-seaters with a top-heavy seniority list, top notch payrates, and top-notch contract terms has a very high probability of losing airplanes, flying and/or entering a sham bankruptcy to weasel out of contract provisions/payrates. A shiny contract with great payrates means nothing if the probability of losing it all in the next few years is very high.

Mesa's contract/terms can't go any lower. Our average seniority on property is dropping like a rock as we staff up for the EJets.

At the same time, Mesa is probably entering the plateau phase of all of this growth, and without more growth or attrition, the probability of a quick upgrade is quickly declining, and I think we'll eventually see some people jumping ship for Compass/PSA from the bottom of the list as we near the end of our current growth spurt.

Humans are rational actors--when the probability of upgrade and/or being based in one's hometown, in combination with our current contract/pay starts to be lower than that package at other carriers, we'll lose pilots and/or fail to fill classes. Unfortunately, that reality will probably sink in well after we're fully staffed for the near-term future.

Given all of that, without further growth or unless no one shows up to our last few classes this year, I don't see us getting a new contract anytime soon. The company simply has no reason to agree to anything right now.

 

JO admitted in a recent new-hire luncheon he'd have to offer more attractive FO rates IF the upgrade wasn't so quick. I don't know if he was pandering to the new-hires or being realistic about what it'd take to get more people in the door if upgrades slowed, but I'm sure he'd love to keep this expansion-with-low-labor-costs thing going for as long as possible. And that's the irony - once labor costs go up flying goes away.

 

My opinion. Talk about this quick up grade is not gonna happen. It's JO'sway of attracting pilots because the pay is the lowest in the industry.

 

Huh?

Most junior CRJ CA- 4/2013 Hire
Most junior E175 CA- 4/2013 Hire (November award)

 

Yea I was just about to say that lol. You get my message Prior?