Direct entry captain: to go or not to go??
 

Direct entry captain: to go or not to go??

While they’re all dangling the carrot of 45K sign on CA bonuses.

You’re 7 months into employment with what everyone calls a “bottom” feeder regional. You’re experience allows you to upgrade but you can’t hold the seniority and it’s so unpredictable. You’re desperate for TPIC since you have 0, coming back from time off from flying and need to advance ASAP to get to your dream job to enjoy maybe 20 or so yrs. You need the left seat $$.

It’s Reserve for life no matter staying put at your current company or moving on. You’ll commute no matter the company.
Work rules are so much better at anywhere else vs your bottom feeder. So you hope. IE: you don’t get commuter hotels, commuter clause is terrible, DH is not 100%, pay/per diem is lowest, now real effective “flow” which is used as a terrible recruiting scheme. No incentive to continue doing this for anymore SIC time.

Do you jump ship to:
1-Piedmont
2-Commutair
3-GoJet
4-Or any other regional hiring day one/two into the left seat?
5-Stay put and wait your number while saying this place bites in all ways.

Spirit, Frontier, Allegiant.

I'd be doing whatever possible to get out of the regional game, not move to a different corner of it.

A valid strategy, but it depends on a person’s goals. A lot of legacy recruiters will tell people that they still prefer TPIC time over a new Airbus type rating.

Where the hell are you if those 3 options are a step up?

Not say you’re not trying, but no one is knocking.
I’d give the LLC or lower end cargo advice to any low time SIC, young FO, newbie. But with over 5k total and 3500+ 121 SIC turbine, 2 or more years of SIC time in an airbus at an LLC isn’t going to do much except say “where your TPIC? That’s a lot of time and but that’s great, you’ve got an A319 type”. In a recent job fair every recruiter questioned.... “so never been a captain...?”

This isn’t a thread about going LLC?

Can you only imagine!? :eek:

Spirit and Frontier have relatively short upgrade times, under 5 years, with a lot of planned growth. I'd rather make more money as a young FO at a LCC than a CA at a regional. Continue to try for the legacies while at an LCC, and know that if you never make it, you still have a much better job and work rules than a regional.

I mean, there's no way I'd make a lateral to any of those 3.

So if it sucks where you are and will suck where you're going to go, then you might as well get TPIC and paid, right? This is assuming you wouldn't be taking a pay cut as a DEC, bonus aside.

CommutAir is probably the best bet of the ones that you listed, only insomuch that CPP is a plus if you qualify.

That's not advice that I'd give to many, but it kinda sounds like you're answering your own question there.

You are going to hate life for a very long time while you sit a few years on Reserve in New York while seeing FO after FO upgrade and immediately jump ahead of you in CA seniority. Honestly, I cannot imagine why someone would move laterally to upgrade. The few months quicker upgrade and bonus money is not worth that kind of prolonged pain.

This^^^

You can also make a career at Spirit with the pay now.

Don't go to pdt.. worst reserve rules in the industry.

Making more money today at an lcc means you'll have more money at 65 than if you played around in the regionals for another 5 to 10 years. Take the best money you can get today, preferably outside the the regionals

This^^^

the worst thing that can happen at a regional is that the whole regional goes away and you start out zero seniority somewhere else. All it will take is one bad mistake by a coworker over whom you have zero control. And that HAS HAPPENED at some regionals and may happen at others.

The worst thing I would expect to happen at most ULCCs is that they get bought and you go through a seniority list integration to become the tail end part of something even bigger and better. That might be wishful thinking, but so might expecting to finish your career at any given regional.

Commutair only has airport reserve, so even living in base may not make it more fun. But they are so desperate for captains that you would probably get to fly every time you were assigned reserve.

However, 1000 multi turbine PIC is the ticket to the dance. Do a year of that at Commutair and then upgrade to an LCC or cargo operation.

6 year FOs at Expressjet would have been hired by now at United via CPP if they had gone to Commutair at year 3.

Short term pain, long term gain.

CommutAir also assigns Short Call but there is a lot of flying. CPP is getting C5 pilots to United.

Jump ship to a U/LCC and keep your apps in with the legacies... and hit hw job fairs... I have a buddy at Delta who made it with 2500 jet SIC time and no TPIC so it’s possible.

Go to Endeavor or Republic. Get paid as much as DECs as a FO and make a lot more $ when you upgrade. Have a good QOL as well.

DEC is a dicey proposition for many folks. Learning a new jet and a new FOM can cause problems. PDT apparently has had a low DEC success rate. The folks who’ve had the best performance either know the jet, or flew at another AA WO.

Neither are hiring right now due to classes being filled for the rest of the year unfortunately.

Probably worth the wait tbh.

Or you may want to look at USA Jet or someplace like that. Go back to being an FO in something you’re familiar with before branching out.

Old not glass/FMS jet SIC time combined with lack of currency is setting yourself up for failure, or a large struggle to succeed in a DEC training program.

You’ll be better off going into an RJ and getting flight current as an FO. You can always DEC at another airline after you’ve got some current aircraft experience.

This is solid advice

I'm leaning toward a Near-DEC position or an FO position with a fairly quick upgrade to CA (< 1 yr).

As others have said, accepting a DEC position with my lack of currency is a risky move, and I agree.

Yes it is. I'd rather it take me several more months to start logging TPIC than to have a training failure because I wasn't ready.

What are your flight times, and where are you now?

Depending on this, jumping ship for a DEC or Near-DEC gig might be a better option than staying where you are and languishing on reserve forever and not building any TPIC.