1 or 2 day trips.
 

I will give it a try..
Hi! So I have around 1400TT and it's time for me to choose the regional. I've been reading this forum for a while but still have problems with deciding where to go. I am looking for a regional where I can spend most of the nights at home (I have a newborn, want to help my wife). I know I wish for a lot... So, is there any airline which has mostly 1 or 2 day trips? I can sit on reserve for a while as well. My final goal is G4. We can move to any base we want, however we would prefer PHX, DFW or FL.(my wife is a CFI so any place with some flight schools would be great). Any advice would be appreciate. Thank you!

Airport reserve here at Horizon is almost a guarantee that you’ll be home every night. I’ve never gotten an overnight when on airport reserve. I assume other regionals are similar. The trade off is lack of flying. But it’s a good fall back if you need a month or two at home.

Well Skywest has a phoenix base that you should be able to hold pretty quickly as an FO, a Captain however will take 5+ years to hold. G4 does have a base here in Mesa, which is close to PHX, so you will have that going for you in terms of not having to move a bunch. Not sure what the hiring criteria for G4 is, so you may have to commute with Skywest once you upgrade to get the tpic you would need.

One final note about G4, from my understanding you are looking at a 3 year wait to hold Mesa, so again commuting which I hear is not a good option for G4 pilots.

Gonna be tough for a while. You might be able to luck into a situation that allows that but the long-term cost might be vast in terms of opportunity and money.

But if you're set on G4 and can move to a junior base at least for a while, you'll be able to be home every night. Might have to suck it up to get there. Tens of thousands of airline pilots have kids, and manage to deal with overnight trips.

Sounds like Silver Airways material to me. I don’t think they do many overnights. Plus plenty of flight schools for the wife.

Yep, this is #1 for me now. It's just this pay... 36$/hour is still pretty low :/ But you can't have everything. Another thing is that turbo prop vs turbo jet time. Do you think you can still get a job at LCC with turbo prop time?

This is the thing - I can move to any base I want. So I don't really have to stay at PHX. :) I've been thinking about silver, republic and PSA. Silver has a lot of day trips (but really low pay), heard republic and PSA have pretty nice and felxible scheduling system.

Prop time will put you at a disadvantage nowdays because there are soooo many people with glass/jet/RNP, etc experience out there. SWA at one point not too long ago hired a lot of regional prop drivers, when OO retired their last props.

it depends which LCC. I’m pretty sure Allegiant won’t mind and I know Spirit will take you as we had a couple of Silver pilots in the school house when I went through. $36 an hour is rough though in South Florida.

That's debatable. Had a bunch of dash drivers go to Delta within the last year or two at horizon...also a glass/RNP/cat 3 airplane. The experience you get flying a Q400 can't be found at any other regional (this is both a good and bad thing..lol)

Well...SkyWest has both PHX and DFW bases on the CRJ, but you aren't very likely to get either one right out of training. Right now it's around 5-6 months. And training is 2 months right there, even if you did get one right out training. Plus, if you're looking for nothing but locals and 2 days, that's likely going to take you at least a couple years of seniority and probably at least 3 before you get a schedule like that at SkyWest. And then you'll have to stay an FO instead of upgrading and getting those TPIC hours to move on to a major.


Honestly, if you are concerned about your wife and newborn in the short term, and need to provide personal assistance to your wife, I'd keep whatever job you have now, or if you don't have one, get one as a CFI. Any 121 training program is not going to be conducive to taking care of a newborn at home. At all. I can't stress that enough. No way you want to be getting up in the middle of the night helping with a newborn while going through training. You don't even want to be helping with dinner or dishes or putting the baby to bed in the evening when going through training. As a CFI you'll be home every night and can help your wife out in this difficult time. Then when your child is 6 months or a year old and is sleeping through the night, and old enough for day care, then look to take the next step in your career.


If you are more worried about being able to put food on the table and buy diapers right now on a CFI salary and worried about the long term, then get on with a good regional with a junior base (for both FO and CA) in a lower cost-of-living city, move there, and provide the financial security your family needs even if you spend 2 months away from them and then 10 or 12 nights per month in a hotel somewhere for awhile. In this case, SkyWest in DTW, ORD, COS, or DEN might be a decent choice, though there are others as well.


If you try to split the difference with a really low paying regional I don't think you're going to end up getting anything that you're hoping for.

Junior guys on the CRJ in SLC with SkyWest hold standups and locals. Junior pilot has been here 5 months or so. 80%+ of the trips on the CRJ in SLC are standups and locals.

Must be nice...

That's a big change. I might have stayed if I could have lived in SLC, skied days and dozed for dollars at night.

But what's CA seniority these days?

20 years is middle of the pack, and it won't hold standups a lot of the time. Management has cut the pay on the standups as well. 5:30 a night has turned into 4:45. Even the guys that have been here 30+ years are lucky to get 6 hours a night.

Not an issue at G4 but not sure about NK or F9. We have quite a few former Silver guys here, some that have never done overnights. I met one that never even had to move or commute, flight school/CFI then Silver then G4 all in the same city in FL. Good luck to you.

And yet, in some bases we can't get locals or even 2 days with 30+ years(only lots of 3 and 4 day trips most don't want).

OK, I made the right call then.

Nature of the beast... regionals usually cover the last pm connector from hub to outstation, and first connector to the hub in the am. If the timing doesn't work for standups, then it's a 4-day.

Yeah the trip mix/pairing quality in some bases is terribly bad.

I've given serious consideration to moving to another domicile where I wouldn't be middle of the pack and would bid in the top 10-15%, (if not #1 or #2) thinking my QOL would go up but looking at the trips and transparency report prove that wrong in a lot of cases.

Not really true, we used to have a great mix of about 1/3 locals, 1/3 2 days, and 1/3 3 day trips, never even had any 4 days. Was able to be home everyday bidding only locals for years and years.

In SLC??? I bid four day for years (commuter). That was a good while ago though.

But they can cover the overnights with 2 or 3 day trips too.

No, not in SLC, that was kind of the point. We used to have a great mix of pairings in bases other than SLC, so the whole "outstation" excuse for horrible pairings doesn't really fly.

20 years is middle of the pack at a regional?? Seriously?

Many regionals have some super senior base like that. Maybe not 20 years... though 22 is the middle of the pack at MSP at 9E.

SLC Stats:
50% CRJ CA 19 Years 3 Months
50% ERJ CA 17 Years 1 month
Jr Captain CRJ 3 Years 2 months
Jr Captain ERJ 6 Years 2 months

50%CJR FO 3 Years 7 months
50% ERJ FO 1 Year 9 months
Plug CRJ FO 4 months
Plug ERJ FO not even off IOE

If it's low COL, a decent place to live and the same regional has had a base for many years, it will tend to accumulate senior pilots, since senior regional CA pay is decent enough if the COL is low.

The SLC domicile has a bunch of old guys (myself included). Out of the 350 or so total captains between the two aircraft, 235 are 45 or older. 150 of those over 50. Only 60 or so are under the age of 40. We've got another 50 FOs over the age of 45 also.

More Fun Facts for SLC domicile
Sr FO on the CRJ has been with the company more than 21 Years
Sr FO on the ERJ is at 19.5 years.

QOL trumps pay by a long shot.

SkyWest 20 years in SLC gets you 80% on the captain side.. Or that same person any other base east of Denver you can be in the top 10 ... (or even SFO)