Regionals Suck
 

Regionals suck. That is all.

Now we know that you don’t have any other experience as a professional pilot.

They're supposed to suck.

Go experience Army life, then fly the civi side. Pilots love to complain, but I haven't found much to complain about here compared to my old life. Started this year. Reserve? Nope. Thanksgiving off? Yep. Snack basket... okay, maybe our snack basket sucks. BobbyLee!!! You need to represent, son!

Put in your time, pay your dues, keep a good attitude, and move on.

Nothin like starting the day with 4000 calories straight to the hips... Am I right Taco280?!

https://i.imgflip.com/2kg966.jpg

Don't know if I ever ate the chili. The spaghetti and ravioli meals were decent, considering...

Yeah. Flying in 120F heat. Chicken plate. Someone trying to kill you. Shoving frozen 1 liter bottles of water down your flak vest to keep from a heat injury. Then dumping those bottles on you when they melted. Doing that 14 days in a row and so exhausted you learn the meaning of “chronic fatigue.” Looking at pictures of your family every night and hoping you would see them again. Tell me again how regional life sucks?
I have news for you. If you hate it now you wont be happy pflying for the majors. Yeah. Pay is much better. QOL can be better. But it’s the same job.

Or hauling checks when you needed 500 hours ME to get hired. The equipment was poorly maintained. The hours were long. But at least the pay sucked.

Yeah man, the regionals do suck. But mainly because of the pay. That's really the only thing I have to complain about.

Getting shot at and eating MRE meals in 120 F heat sounds way more sucky than being a regional pilot today, though.

Some of you think you have problems because you're against the regionals. You demonstrated in school... you wear peace symbols on your steel, and you have attitudes. I'm an orphan, my brother's queer, the city of Chicago got the clap from my sister, Mom drinks, Dad coughs blood, I have ringworm, imersion foot, the incurable crud and the draft ruined my chances of being a brain surgeon. People, you are in the regionals. You have no problems.

Welcome to the suck. You guys should give grunt life a try!

https://i.chzbgr.com/full/4388687872/hD78C4DB6/

Things sucking is not mutually exclusive.

Embrace the suck!

I have never found my regional career to suck. People said it would, but I have honestly enjoyed my 7 year stint. It is the easiest and most enjoyable job I've ever had.

i've had months with 6 nights at home, 3 leg commutes, etc...all to sit reserve in SBY or ROA. It still wasn't that bad. What really sucks is listening to the unwavering *****ing, when you are flying with someone who wants it all right this second.

The same someone who got tens of thousands of dollars more to hire out as a FO. Oh and makes $20,000 more than you did when you were in their position, and complains about their 30 minute flight to commute. GTFOH.

Being a regional pilot is the best job I’ve had and I’m making more than I ever have.

I’ve been a CFI, worked fast food and retail and worked two dead end jobs at the same time to make ends meet. Don’t tell me what sucks.

Lose your medical and you surely won’t think regionals suck. Trust me, don’t take what you have for granted.

With regionals, sometimes the job sucks, sometimes it doesn't.

What is guaranteed to suck, 95% of the time, is the regional career.

Worst case, you get COMAIRed about the time your kids start college, with no professional skills, no degree, and too old to start over anywhere but walmart or another regional.

Best case, you luck into a sweet deal where you can live where you want and they never close your base. And you get to watch your peers who made it to the bigs pull down three times your pay for easier work and more days off.

The equipment was poorly maintained AND OLDER THAN I WAS and the de-ice/anti ice was an aftermarket add on with a heated windshield gizmo the size of an iPad to see through to land - at night - at uncontrolled airports, while the props were slinging ice against the fuselage and the pneumatic bladders on the wings were cycling as fast as they could and you knew damn well that if you lost an engine the only thing you could depend on the remaining engine to do was to get you to the scene of the crash.

Yeah, I think about those days when I'm running on the treadmill in the company paid for hotel gym before getting my mandatory rest time in a warm comfortable bed.

Do I want to get through the regional's and move on? Oh HELL yeah. But "suck"? Well, I guess I've done a lot of suckier things.

I know the feeling, l always make it to the gym at least once a trip to fill up my water bottle-- a bonus if I see another crew member on my way out with my water and give the 'work out nod' as I pass by.

Life is about choices. If you are based in PHL but live in LAX, you're gonna have a bad time. If you are an FO and have 7 kids, you're gonna have a bad time. The good news is there are plenty of jobs that have good pay and a decent quality of life but "they're not the quickest path to the majors". Personally, I'd rather make a livable wage and enjoy my life than suffer at a regional until a major calls. You never know when they will call, and they may never call. Others will choose to stay at a regional until they get picked up.

I guess what I'm trying to say is...the regionals sucking is not secret information. You knew what you were getting into and if you didn't then your Google abilities are weak.

You know something!!?? You suck!

Miss mommy's basement?
 

Sounds like someone finally got the boot after mom and dad kicked them out of the basement. Adulting is hard but you get used to it

Buck up buttercup...if you think getting paid thousands to fly airplanes for a living, consider what that same time spent working in a factory or on a farm would get you.

Of course there are always people worse off than pilots. But most of them usually did or did not do something to get themselves in that spot. The key factor here is that people are coming into the industry with unrealistic expectations about how far they will go. The flight schools tell everyone how easy it will be to get to mainline. They don’t want to tell people the truth because then most of them would not get flight training. You need to do abundant research and find out if the airline industry is truly for you. There are other very rewarding careers out there.

You can instantly tell if someone has ever had a real job or not when they display their lack of perspective on this subject. You know what sucks? Climbing drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, 24/7, rain or shine,152 miles from the bank, that sucks. The only thing that sucks about this job is the chicken sh1t paychecks and the costume. It’s all about perspective.

I went to college shortly after 9/11, hated instructing, hated the industry so I left. After 10 years in a soul sucking corporate mid management job I came back to aviation and decided I would have a new perspective on instructing. Looking at it through a different lense and enjoying it for what it is I'm loving it. I took a 50% pay cut to go back to aviation and there isn't one second of the day I regret it. Going to the regionals in about 2 months and going to enjoy it for what it is. Don't know why everyone thinks you should go straight to 777 captain with 17 days off a month right off the bat? That's not how it works.

You know a lot of these other jobs that are being mentioned while they are definitely tough they don’t require six figures of investment to enter. Pilots have different expectations because of how much money has been spent to qualify for the job. There just expecting a return on investment that may not be there. I think that’s where a lot of these malcontents that complain every day are coming from.

Amen....
Suck it up ya millennials!

Lol all the bitter guys at my airline are in their 40’s or older.

I'll second that

What can a regional captain top out at today? I didn't think the pay discrepancy was THAT big unless you're specifically talking widebody captain. On that note, how old is too old to expect a shot at widebody captain at a major for someone just starting at the regionals?

A regional CA (at certain regionals) who is not a LCA, flies his line, and does not monitor open time 24/7 can probably top out $120K -150K. If you really work for it $200K might be achievable, but that's hard work. Many regional pay scales top out at 20 years. But that's not guaranteed long-term.

Legacy NB CA is easily $400k ish. Majors tend to have 12-year scales.

I would estimate for someone hired in the next few years at a legacy, WB CA might be around 20 years. Normally it's longer but there are a lot of retirements coming up.

Being junior as a WB CA is the last thing that sounds appealing to me in my early 60's, but to each his own!

Give me the cushyyyy life of a 5% seniority NB FO in my golden years where I can cherry pick pretty much everything on my schedule!

WB anything is pretty good QOL, unless you commute to reserve. Even then I know guys who simply own a nice condo in a nice location in base, so it's more like having two residences (you can afford that...).

Pay is so much more on WB, about the only good reason to stay NB FO would be if you have kids at home and need weekends/holidays off. Or if you just hate time zones.

Absolutely agree here. I talk to pilots of varying levels in their careers, and hear some of the butthurt and just have to laugh. In all reality..is it really that bad? Go be a cop in the ghetto for a couple years, then come back to me and tell me how bad it is. Yeah, you paid a lot to get where you are, and the money sucks for a bit, but there's upward mobility..simply based on SENIORITY. Nothing else. You name me a job that has that ability. Not many left.

Have to agree with many other posts here. Having worked my butt off in a few blue collar jobs (including working as an a&p) flying for a regional is by far the easiest, best QOL job I've had. If the biggest complaint you have is "there's only any Arby's and a TGI Fridays near the hotel, this overnight sucks!" You're doing well.

I think sometimes pilots lose sight of what we are doing. Think about how many of your peers who started flight training with you that couldn't finish due to medical or financial reasons. If you are healthy enough to hold a 1st class medical and employable enough to hold a job at a regional you've done quite well.

Does this mean I won't fight/vote for better QOL/pay in the next contract negotiations? Absolutely not. But I'm not going to sit here feeling sorry for myself while holding a job I worked hard to get to, and truly enjoy 95% of the time. This isn't conscription, nobody is holding a gun to your head. If you don't like it, find something you do like. We live in a wonderful country full of opportunity.

I love all the one upping going on here. Oh you think regionals suck?! You should try xxxxx. Oh you think having a raging case of syphilis sucks? You should try AIDS. Just because there are other things that suck doesnt mean regionals dont suck. Quit trying to one up everyone. Oh you say being in the present daymilitary sucks? That doesnt suck. Being on the russian front in the winter of '42 sucks!! Your nerf job in the army doesnt suck as much as that!

People are just bringing some perspective into the conversation. I don't think anyone here views this as a ****ing contest. Just a means to keep your feet on the ground

This thread sucks!

Especially if you were Russian

Which isn't the exception that proves the rule, merely a more vivid example. I recall back in my college days a paper some social anthropologist had written about "the decline of stoicism in American culture." It sounded kind of bogus to me but it was assigned reading so I read it. It was a review of all the daily journals that had been written by the Donner Party. Daily journals - apparently - were a big thing with the wagon train crowd to document their journey out to the West.

For those of you who never had to take California history as a high school graduation requirement, I'll give you some quick background.

The Donner Party was a wagon train going to California that got a late start, were slowed further by some rains and flooding, and got to Donner Pass about five or six six weeks later than they might have wished. An early blizzard hit and they got trapped there. Between avalanches and twenty-five foot drifts, you just can't move a Conestoga wagon. Some people died trying and were buried in the drifts. Trapped just short of safety, they had already gone through most of their supplies, so the oxen went first, then the mules, then the horses. Still starving and unable to move, they dug up their dead and ste them too.

The point is, in all the diaries, both of the ones who survived and the ones who didn't, there was no whining. There was no poor pitiful me. The researcher said the closest she came to whining was one entry where a survivor said that it had been "an uncommonly cold winter..."

Now I'm not trying to get into a contest as to who had things worse, but the point is that whining is unseemly. Cowboy up, Fer gawds sake.

If you don't want to be in a regional, go do something else. But don't whine incessantly. You're just coming across as a wuss.

Anytime anyone invests in anything in large amounts they will expect a certain return. If that doesn’t happen they will not be happy. You’re right it doesn’t matter if it’s fair or not. This is just the factual history of the airline industry. Educate yourself accordingly.

The Russian front was pleasant and fun, comrade. Please report to the Kremlin for reeducation.