To flow or not to flow?
 

I’m 39 and I am prepared to make a career change and enter a career in the airlines. When I first began researching which regional would be right for me, I thought I should place I high priority on flying time. The thought process being that I’m already behind, no reason to sit around at Envoy or another regional with flow not flying. Need to upgrade ASAP. Recently however I have started thinking flow may actually be better for me. If it’s 7-8 years on average before most get to the majors, by that time I’ll be in my late forties and that would probably be a big disadvantage going the interview route. So maybe my best chance of making it at all would be to go to Envoy and tough it out. I do have a Masters degree in a field unrelated to aviation. Thoughts?

The best advice I have ever heard is to pick a regional as if you were going to spend your career there. If you go to a WO regional with a 7-8 year flow (I don't actually know what the flow times are) and you're miserable, is it worth it? Also, you don't know what the economy will be doing in the next 5 years. You don't want to end up stuck at a regional where you're miserable because you were chasing a flow. That being said, if a WO with a flow suits all of your other needs (domicile, work rules, compensation etc) AND has a flow then that's the best of both worlds. Good luck!

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If you're going to settle for seven to eight years to get to a major, then you might as well head to someplace like 9E or YX where you'll be well compensated while you wait.

That being said, you can probably get to a major in five off the street once you get competitive with PIC time. Unless you really want AA, you'll probably get to a major sooner OTS (or CPP or DGI) than you'd flow at an AA WO.

If you take the 20-somethings that DL hires out of the picture, the average new hire age at many majors is somewhere around 40. You won't be too old.

I’d like to be based at DFW, which seems very doable either way. Seems to me SkyWest may have a better reputation for QOL?

Envoy has a much more solid footing in DFW than SkyWest. If you absolutely want DFW, I’d say it’s an easy choice.

With DFW as your goal, go with Envoy. The flow is a guaranteed (unless you screw up something bad).

As soon as you have a minimum number of hours, start applying to AA. In 2017, they hired 9% Civilian Off The Street. As their hiring increased in 2018, they hired 21% Civ OTS. Some of these were from the WOs, some from others. (24% direct Mil OTS and 55% Flows from Wholly Owned.)

That shows, if your goal is AA in DFW, flow is the broadest path. Don’t worry about your age. Mid-40s is just a little above average. How old is too old? I’ve heard of pilots age 63 or 64 getting hired.

My crystal ball says in a few years the average regional pilot will be hired by the majors in 5 years (based on increased hiring needs due to retirements). This is Flows and OTS for all airlines combined.

That will mean 7-8 year Flows will have to change to keep up.

The DFW base is junior and growing for OO. Better pay and work rules as well. Where would you rather be stuck? The flow is only a guarantee of things stay as they are now. Anyone who knows the industry knows that is highly unlikely.

You won't be too old for OTS at the majors. They have hired people in their 60's.

You may have heard that age can be a hiring factor. In the distant past it certainly was, they wouldn't touch you a day after age 30. But the military training obligation was only 5-6 years back then so a 22 y/o college grad could get trained and complete his mil obligation under age 30. That was what they expected you to do and they mostly hired mil pilots.

All different today, mil pilots will be as old as mid-30's before completing their obligation, and it's now illegal to discriminate based on age.

You may have even heard they still do, but it's not really directly age they are considering. Older folks are more likely to have "career stagnation", ie they got suck flying one plane, often an RJ, for 10-15+ years.

Maybe their fault, maybe not. If you get senior at a regional with one type, you are stuck, can't really afford to start over at another regional just to get another type in hopes of *maybe* getting a major interview where you *might* get hired. This happened to many folks after 9/11 when movement got real slow for a long time.

They have two problems with stagnation, they have very compelling statistics the folks who haven't completed a training event in a very long time are a training risk. They will also by definition be older. They also have concerns about a "crusty old RJ CA" adapting to his new role as an FO in a new (to him) corporate culture. There have apparently been problems with this as well.

Older, stagnant, pilots who make the effort to get a new type (ideally at an airline, with some line experience since anyone can buy a type rating with enough money), and also make the effort to attend jobs fairs, network, and interview seem to do much better than their age group peers who just fill out apps and wait for something to happen.

I can attest from personal experience that it's much harder for an older family man to jump through all of the hoops to get and pass a major interview. Much easier when you're young and single (or at least childless). If you do everything right, it's pretty much a full time job and you'll have to keep up the full court press for about a year right now once you're numerically competitive.

So you won't have stagnation issues, even though you started late, you'll be moving along at the same clip as all the kids without any ten years gaps in progress. You will need to be prepared to play the application/interview game hard when the time comes. Start as soon as you meet the mins for the majors, probably about two years into the regional game for most majors (most no longer require any TPIC to apply). Sustained long-term interest is a plus, at the very least apply and keep the apps updated every 1-2 months as soon as you meet mins.

As others have said, unless you have significant background glitches, pick a regional you can stay at comfortably for a long time. If there's one with flow that fits that description, do that since it's a nice backup.

There are other well paying airline jobs besides the majors. Every regional pilot has it in their head that they must go to mainline. Maybe you will hate passenger flying, and decide to do cargo instead? Sorry, but most regional guys have blinders on.

Envoy might be best for a DFW base but just keep in mind you’d be sacrificing a ton of pay and QOL. Flow comes at a price.

All of the American WOs are becoming industry bottom. SkyWest just passed a new agreement. Their FOs, along with several other places, are making more than the WO’s captains. FO pay between the two is around a 10k-30k difference and captain pay is around 30k-50k. Not to mention, work rules are almost non existent at the WOs

All the WOs have to offer now is flow. It comes down what you’re willing to give up to have it. As an earlier poster mentioned, it’s not guaranteed. Although not likely anytime soon, if the majors stop hiring... flow will not be sticking around.