A thread on the majors froum go me thinking, now I am not trying to flame but am truely interested as to what the regionals paid back in the 90's? As much as we keep hearing all this talk about SJS and people willing to work for nothing. I am just wondering what all these regionals paid before and what the basis for people bashing guys for working for 20K a year.
I am not a regional pilot so I have only my friends currently on the regionals and this website to see the pay scales.

I fully understand the argument that we will never raise the pay because there is always someone willing to work for those wages. But if this is what the regionals have always paid what is the basis for all the bashing. Does it stem from the long line of guys who went straight to the majors and made the good money pre 9-11? Again not trying to flame just looking for some insight in pre 9-11 regional pay. Thanks

 

It's not that the regionals paid more, it's the equipment/routes they are flying nowadays. Regionals are just another way to outsource flying to the cheapest bidder. As aircraft get larger, less of a need for growth at the majors, the place where all the people that think at 1000 turbine PIC there will be a job waiting for them.

 

pretty soon its going to be 2000+pic for the big boys especially if the age 65 rull passes...

 

Regionals (called commuters) back in the 80's and 90's paid very little and usually had poor QOL, but the pilots would put up with it because:

1) They were entry level.
2) The industry had a tradition of dues paying.
3) It was all turbprops, and for every turboprop in the fleet there were probably 7-8 jet airliners...there were only a handful of t-prop drivers to compete for the bigger jet jobs. Do a few years (like 2-3) at a commuter, then move on to something else.

Today, some things are the same, but other things have changed dramatically:

1) Pilots are still entry level.
2) The dues paying tradition still exists (especially in the minds of older pilots who paid theirs).
3) Unfortunately, the RJ's make up a MUCH larger percentage of the domestic fleet, and they can do almost ANY domestic route. This means that:
a) There are more qualified jet drivers in the regional pool
b) There are fewer big jet jobs because the RJ's have replaced so many.

Management naturally took advantage of the situation to operate domestic routes with entry-level dues-paying labor.

Unfortunately the major airline pilots let it happen by failing to lock in scope. The likely reason is that they didn't want to have any major pilots flying for less than 737 wages, which would have been required for 50 seaters.