PSA, Piedmont and Envoy... that way when you get some sense and flow to American Airlines you can stay in the base you're already in and enjoy more $ and the 16% 401k direct contributions.

Bunch of lifers at OO.

Not a bad place to stay. Unless you live in SLC. Then you're commuting for awhile.

Corporate flight departments get closed or cut back all the time(ask me how I know)...:confused:

Regional and career do not willingly go together.

So I guess if it's not a major airline it's not a career?


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Sounds like a dead end! Thanks!


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SKW has continued to grow through all of that. SKW pay, QOL, and culture are decent, definitely near the top but probably not at the top in all categories. Pay is probably the best, there are a lot of soft-pays and bonuses, after five years you can count on about hourly rate x 1300 for annual pay.

Also SKW as an independent has some advantages, owns some gates, owns lots of airplanes, and is so big that UAL and probably DL could not live without them right now (would take years to transition to another solution). Nobody, including mainline, could acquire hundreds of 70-seat RJ's to replace SKW because they don't exist! Any of the big-three which were to fire SKW would see their RJ's flying for other majors as quick as they could get through ROW. The big-three are generally OK with that because SKW has proven to be a fairly reliable partner with good economy of scale over the long-term. Right now is not a good time to take a chance on a bottom feeder to save a few pennies...customer service is where it's at when the economy is humming along, not penny-pinching.

All that said...there is serious risk that the entire regional model will be in jeopardy in a few years if they run out of FO's. If the legacies start hiring CFIs (or even 1000 hour RJ FO's on a wholesale basis), it will be game-over for the regional industry as we know it today. Even in that case you probably have a job at SKW, but it might be as an FO-for-life. Silver lining, there's a good chance that in order to retain FO's, they would just pay everybody CA rates after five years, regardless of which seat your seniority holds.

My recommendation would be to go to a major, but that will probably become self-evident in 3-5 years.

Why would someone *want* to do that, especially in the current state of the industry?

The reason is because I got into flying as a hobby years ago and failed my private and instrument check rides as I wasn't aware of the repercussion of failing. So I doubt I'll be able to get into a major let alone a regional?


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Having managed expectations is one thing, but in the current (and likely future) state of the industry it just doesn't make any sense to plan on staying at a regional for an entire career.

I doubt that two failed checkrides is going to provide a substantial barrier to getting employed at any of the mainline/national/LCC carriers in the future. Even if it was, with no-additional-interview flows at the three AA-owned regionals, I don't see why someone with that "problem" wouldn't go work at PDT, PSA, or ENY as an insurance policy.

Will you have to talk about checkride failures in future job interviews? Yes.

Will those busts be lifetime barriers to moving past the regionals? Very likely not barring a substantial change to things.