Stay away from Mesa and GoJets. There is no valid reason to be a newhire at either of these carriers. Mesa is a pox upon the industry, dragging down eveyone else. GoJets is an alter ego airline. Working there makes you the next best thing to a Scab. (Note the difference - Mesa crewmembers are all good guys getting a bum deal from the worst Airline CEO since Lorenzo. GoJet crewmembres are buddyFokkers.)

Xjet, Eagle, SkyWest, Republic Group, Air Wisconsin, Comair, & Horizon are probably the top tier. These are places you'd likely spend your entire regional career at happily.

The balance of the carriers listed at http://www.airlinepilotcentral.info/.../regional.html
are places that are either stepping stones to another regional, or places that might be a good fit for your specific circumstance.

I flew for PSA. Had I been from Charlotte, or if I had been able to move there, I probably whould have stayed. Despite the long upgrade, long reserve, and poor schedules, if I didn't have to commute it would have been tolearable.

CommuteAir, Colgan, Great Lakes, all have poor pay and work rules. TSA doesn't put you in a hotel for training. Pinacle and Mesaba just got thier contracts raped by a bankruptcy judge. But if one of these is your home town airline, it may be in your best intrest to fly for one of them. Or if one of them hires you 500 hours earlier than any of the better regionals, go there; but don't be afraid to quit after you get enough time for a better gig. Watch out for airlines with a training contract. If you have to sign a contract to stay, then they must have a retention problem; and that is usually caused by poor Quality of Life (QOL) issues: ie Pay, Schedules, Work Rules, etc.

Read these boards. Places people b!tch about are places to avoid. They brag about placed thy're happy at. You won;t take too long to figure out which is which. If you have a question about life at a particular company you're leaning towards, ask. People will come out of the woodwork to answer.

 

Just two things. TSA does pay for accomodations in training now...whoopee.

Republic has a two year training contract...but you'd probably spend more then two years there anyway, so not really a big deal.

 

Is SkyWest still starting new F/O's at 19/hr and only 60hr in training. Isn't that lower than most? For instance Colgan starts at 21/hr.

 

Pay is not just dollars and cents...WORK RULES are what really determines how much you make.

 

I thought this up the other day...

Importance:

1. Safety
2. Stability
3. Schedule
4. Pay
5. Upgrades
6. Location
7. Experience
8. Travel Benefits

Subject to change

 

Yeah it looks like Colgan would be the better place.

But its not.

People on these boards have told stories about Colgan bouncing paychecks. Someboday even had the Sheriff impound one of thier planes after a judgement to make them pay up.

At Skywest, things are better. Trip rigs make the $2.00 difference a negligable advantage. Both have a 75 hour guaruntee, but at SkyWest they always seem to make more than that. I'd guess not at Colgan. Nobody has ever complained about SkyWest asking them to do something of questionable legality. That seems to be a common occurance at Colgan.

Having said that, Probie pay is disgraceful everywhere. It allows bottom feeder carriers to attract pilots who otherwise might have waited to go on to better gigs. And it makes jumping ship to another airline economic suicide.

 

Understood....it's really whats behind the curtains that defines the quality of a carrier. They can post all kinds of nice looking numbers and figures on their pages but until you get backstage and see the interworkings...you'll never know. That's whats so important about this site. We can talk to people who have been backstage and seen the "man behind the mask"

 

What about older pilots....where can they start that has a good pilot group to work for, I'm 49.

 

This site still seems to be in the works, a little hit&miss depending what you are looking for, but...

http://airlinepilotmentor.com/airlinepilotcontacts.aspx

not contracts all but several from regionals and mainliners

 

4N1Flyer, does your name have anything to do with Greenwood Lake Airport in New Jersey (4N1)? I used to fly out of Jersey.