GoingAround94

I’ve been trying to decide between the two for awhile now. Any input is greatly appreciated.
My top priority is flying. Don’t care if it’s the 145 or 175 I just want to fly and upgrade ASAP but with that being said, I’d prefer to do it in a TX base. DFW for Envoy or IAH for XJT. It seems Reserve times are low in IAH for XJT (2-4 months?) and long in DFW for Envoy (9-12months?)? Pay is pay and I understand they should be somewhat similar.

Is that a fair assessment? Any advice is welcome.

HighWingingIt

For ExpressJet...Upgrade times are dropping fast, word has it we might be (if not already) looking for DEC’s because we’re starting to be short on Captains. The plan this upcoming year is to grow the 145 fleet as much as possible with Houston being the top priority. Training department is one of the best out there. Contract negotiations are in the works and hopefully we get one early in 2020. We’ve got the new Aviate Program but DO NOT think that is a one way ticket to United compared to Envoy’s flow with American.

StuckOnReserve

1st question should be is AA your first choice of mainline carriers to work for? If so then your path will need to go through Envoy or one of the other AA WO regionals.


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itsmytime

Better pay at a Envoy, and guaranteed career progression.

GoingAround94

Yes I’ve heard so so thinks about Aviate. Not using it as a flow like the AA wholly owned.
My mind isn’t 100% set that I have to go to American, any legacy I could get on would be great (I do have a 4 year degree).

GoingAround94

By career progression are you talking about the flow? I’m hoping to get pick just by a major before the 7 year flow perspective. Of course that’s just the plan.

UncreativeUser

I have a 4 year degree as well. You will not beat upgrade times at Envoy due to our forced upgrade program at 950 company time. If you don’t care about fleet than we still offer the better of the two for the time being


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PeakEGT

I can’t speak for Envoy other than what I know is a fact that starting pay is higher than XJT and there’s actual career progression. I’ve liked it at XJT so far. There’s a lot of flying on the 145 and I have the ability to credit 90-100 a month with little effort and commuting. I did two months of reserve which I was used quite a bit with very little sitting around time.

As far as Aviate, the acceptance rates are low but that doesn’t mean that you won’t get in. You might be the person they’re looking for. Factoring our EQO which some refer to as a deferred payment, it’s not so bad. Our union and management are not on best terms, but my experience thus far has been good. There is room for improvement for us to be competitive but overall I came here to be able to fly and now hoping to upgrade in a little over a year.

DBono

I was making a similar decision several months ago, needing a TX base, wound up at XJT and I like everything I see here and I agree with PeakEGT's comments. You will fly as much as you want at XJT, even on reserve. Reserve will be very short (Nancy Bradshaw is a new FO at XJT with a youtube channel documenting some of here training and early experience at XJT - I think she spent 1 month on reserve at IAH in Oct/Nov timeframe).

Regarding pay, XJT has this goofy "EOQ" that is $2500 per quarter if you can average 70 hrs of flying per month. On the surface that sounds easy and it sounds like ~$10 per hour, making the XJT/Envoy pay rates similar. But...… if you are a military reservist or if the reserve situation changes at XJT, it might get a lot harder to log that 70 hrs per month. Then the whole EOQ goes away. And.....any extra flying you do, even at 150%, is based on $40.40 per hr, not ~$50 per hour. We hope this goes away whenever we get a new contract. For now, this is the deal.


Here's why I decided against Envoy. You should go on the Envoy forum and ask some of those folks for updates on these topics - this was my perception 6 months ago, but things can change constantly. You need to get the latest info from the people who are actually there. Consider these questions to be asked.....

1) there seems to be two Envoys - the 145 and the 175. Life on the 175 is great - short reserve, fly a lot. Life on the 145 not so much - LGA base, several months on reserve, flying 20-30 hrs per month while on reserve. Upgrades as you approach 1000 hrs pt 121.

2) the cadets get 1st choice of airplane in a class, the cadets make up over half the new hires and most classes are roughly 50/50 145/175. This means that if you are not a cadet, your chances of getting a 175 are nil. I know you said airplane doesn't matter, but it does matter when it determines where you will be based and how much you'll fly.

While we're on the subject, are you looking at Mesa and SkyWest for DFW/IAH bases? Mesa just got their 175 contracts extended in IAH. They operate 60 E175s for UA out of IAH. That's bigger than some regionals. Lots of people trash talk Mesa, but I have a few friends there are other than the pay, they seem happy. With chances for extra flying at 200% credit, the actual pay gap may not be so large. Again - questions to ask the Mesa folks on that forum.

Austin Milbarge

The EQO is based on credit not flight time. So on reserve it's hard not to meet the credit requirements since you're going to get a 75 hour minimum credit for each month unless you somehow manage to drop some reserve days. I don't know how credit is affected by military reserve duty so I can't speak to that.