OO vs. YX
 

I've done a fair amount of research between SkyWest and Republic. It seems to me like Republic wins in QOL, but SkyWest wins in fast upgrades, and PIC time. What is more important, QOL or PIC? Which airline is superior?

Republic upgrades are ~2 years and falling. Do you have any 121 time? Because you will need 1000 hours to be eligible to upgrade even if you are senior enough to hold Captain. Between initial training backlog that most airlines face and sitting reserve, blocking 1000 hours could take almost 2 years anyway. That being said, I believe Republic newhire classes are filled for the rest of the year.

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I don't have any 121 time, I'll enter the 121 world straight from instructing. On OO's website the most junior captain has 13 months seniority on the CRJ in DTW. Which obviously has a lot of appeal over 24+, but I think YX's contract appears to be better.

SK classes are at least 6 mo out as well.
QOL vs anything else is something only YOU can answer for yourself. Ask 100 people, you'll get 100 different answers.
But, if you want to move on...bigger planes...bigger airline...whatever...121 PIC - hard to beat how good that looks on the resume.

You won't get 1000 hours in 13 months.. it will take you at least a year and a half

That 13 month upgrade likely came from another carrier and already had 121 time.

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Can you live in base? Both have similar work rules. Avoiding a commute should be your goal.

This. Don’t commute unless you absolutely have to.

Yeah. That’s the CRJ in Detroit. And that guy is the low time captain at Skywest. More representative upgrade times everywhere else, even in the CRJ, are 2-3 years and for the ERJ are longer than that. SEA is seven years, PDX is eight. Salt Lake City? Fuggedaboutit. You ain’t gonna live that long.

But seriously, if you are going to live as Far East as Detroit, go with YX.

THIS^^^^

You literally can not. You won’t be through your training in one month, more likely two and a half. Then the max you can possibly average is 83 hours a month, and that’s after you finish IOE. 1000/12= 83.33.

But you’ll be sitting Reserve somewhere, lucky if you fly 60 hours a month the first 2-3 months. And then they won’t upgrade you even at 1000 hours unless there is a vacancy.

Where do you want to live?

If you don't care, then OO.

If you want to live and fly east of the Mississippi River, YX is your company. If you live or want to fly west of the Mississippi River. OO is the place to go. Don’t commute cross country if you can avoid it. That’s the biggest factor that will destroy QOL faster than anything.

This thread has been helpful. I knew I needed 1000 hours to be able to upgrade, but I hadn't thought about how long that would take. So even though there's the one guy that had a quick upgrade, it's most likely that its about 2 years to upgrade at either airline? In that case if upgrade is comparable, I should go wherever I won't have to commute? That seems to all make sense.

Why? Republic has better pay and better work rules as well as block or better. The only benefit is Skywest can likely get him/her in class sooner.

Absolutely. The only other factor is it looks like OO can get you in class about 6 months sooner than YX if you interviewed today. That's a pretty big deal.

OOs biggest problem is their block rules which are horrible and costs their pilots a lot of money. Block or better at YX means you are going to be guaranteed the scheduled block, or if you go over you get paid for that too. And that is for each leg.

I couldn't tell where you live from your posts. I looked at both airlines as well. One thing people who are pro OO won't tell you is that you won't get a west coast base for a while from what I can tell. However, if your there for a while you will get one, YX you never will. So for me comparing the two there were a few things that made me decide on YX; E170/175 only fleet, no junior manning (which can be big if you commute), having a real union, and growth potential (which may or may not ever happen, the 100 E175 order may just be a recruiting tool). The biggest thing for me though came down to company culture, YX gave me a much better feeling that I would fit in. YX wasn't really on my radar but I gave them a chance and every interaction I had was great and I have not been disappointed. Nobody can really answer the question for you, we all have different things that make an airline the right choice.

Unless you actually DESIRE to move from MCI, go with Republic. They have a base at MCI and even if you can’t hold it initially (not sure of base seniority at Republic) commuting on company aircraft is always easier. Don’t get me wrong, if you have a burning desire for Detroit, well....better you than me, I guess.

How soon will you actually have the numbers to get hired? If you can apply six months before then they can probably hold the CJO that long.

I'm from the MCI area, but I go to school in Southwest Virginia. I'm not tied down to any geographic location after school. I just want to live cheap so that I can pay off student loans quickly. I still have a while until I can realistically get a class (probably March 2020), but I like to stay current on the various airlines and see how they change. These have been my top two for a while now.

Everyone quotes this but 99.9% of the time it was never an issue for me.

Dude. If you're over a year from meeting the mins this thread is completely irrelevant. So much will change in the next year. There will likely be a new darling and one of the 2 you are looking at could be the latest bottom-feeder. Things really do change that fast.

I thought SkyWest had that too?

I think you have that backwards. Most OO new hires on both CRJ and E-175s are starting out east.

All YX bases are east of the Mississippi.

OO 175 new hires are going to LGA as of now, but given that they are struggling to perform in the NYC area, doesn’t look like that’ll last too long.

If you’re trying to live cheap comfortably and able to move to any location, YX is your best bet. People complain that YX is the “outstation” airline, but truthfully the dollar goes A LOT farther at most of our bases than any of the hubs and that can be huge if you’re looking at owning a home.

Anything can change by “March 2020,” but the outstation bases won’t. Some may fall, some may rise.

One month of legacy seniority will wipe out years of "better" regional pay.

Now I would not advocate a bottom feeder with crap QOL, because you might stuck longer than planned.

OO and YX are both fine as regionals go. So geography first. If that doesn't matter to you, then career progression opportunity, as best as you can guess today. All else being equal then sure, go for the bonus.

Not being paid for time that you worked was never an issue for you?

Same here. I get that across the pilot group it adds up to a chunk of change, but unless in you're constantly rushing everywhere you can usually beat the house.

But that is exactly what you are doing by saying that rhetoric. Yeah, we all heard those horror stories about two guys in classes just a week apart and one is a 747 Capt at the top of the pay scale and was never furloughed a day in his life and the other is still a first officer who was furloughed for 10 years or something. But there are only a few times in history where a month difference in seniority can mean that. By going to a bottom feeder because you think you will get TPIC quicker not only enables those bottom feeders to continue to bottom feed, but there is also no guarantee that you will get TPIC any faster then those at the "quality" regionals.

With the IROPS, strong winds, and deicing I overblocked ~6 hours already this month. It is not just some insignificant outlier, it does add up over the year to a significant chunk of change.

That's not what I'm talking about. Although at an airline with over 4,000 pilots I personally paid a HUGE QOL price for MANY years because I deferred the class date they offered me to take one two weeks later because the wife wanted to go on vacation. Three folks from my class, all senior, ended up in the same very small base that I did for about a decade. If I had taken the earlier class I would have been about 20% higher which would have saved me a lot of reserve, weekends, and holidays. They were doing so much hiring at the time that I didn't think two weeks mattered, despite what older, wiser folks told me. Now I know. When I went to the major I took the first class offered, and so far that's saved me at least a year of reserve. Learn from the mistakes of others. Usually I'm pretty good at that, but in this I'M the bad example to learn from.

One month as a legacy CA off reserve will pay at least $30K. How many months of that do you want to leave on the table?

Now there is the time value of money to consider, if you're heavily in debt now and can knock that down with a big bonus that might be worth it for peace of mind even if the long-term math doesn't work out. I could see myself doing that.

But if it's just the difference between affording a high-end honda or a low-end acura now, I'd consider the long game.

But again QOL first. That directly influences divorce, which is probably the biggest threat to your financial future.

Great point right there

I don’t think one should be making decisions in the present because they “might” make 30K a month in like 15 years. That’s not gauranteed. Might as well load up the credit cards now since you can pay them all off in a month when you’re 40.

I agree. According to my Union in 1999. I should have been a AA captain in 2002-4 range... glad I didn’t buy that Porsche... you never know whats going to happen. QOL over pay. And were realy talking “paper” pay. You live in base vs commute you can easily make more then commuting for a extra $3-5 a hour..

What are you talking about? You really don’t understand how OO pays its pilots do you? I get paid for every minute block out to block in. The OO “block or better” issue is that if I fly faster than scheduled block we get paid historical credit not scheduled block. So OO is really “historical credit or better” but I’m paid for every minute block out to block in.

Yes I have too, and I’ve been paid for every minute of it.....

Struggling to perform in the NYC? According to who?

Which is still a pay cut compared to the majority of the industry that we love to compare our rates to.

Yea, but we aren’t the only one who does it this way. That’s also a different discussion to have. I was more pointing out the inaccuracy of his post. He actually thinks that we only get paid block/historical credit which is not true at all. He actually thought that if we blocked 3 hours on a flight due to deice, flow etc that was only scheduled at 1:45 we only get paid 1:45, which is absolutely false.

As I said, time value of money counts. If you have debt to pay off, better do that.

If not, six months would be worth a couple peanuts less. It's all peanuts anyway.

You have to determine your own risk tolerance for industry stability (there is hard empirical data to suggest it will be pretty good for a while).