Read the major airline threads...
 

I know, I know, you are worried about what is going on at your own regional and what it means to you, but most people aren’t doing a lot of flying right now and you will never get a better opportunity to see business models under stress than you do right now.

From a regional perspective it may be easy to say, especially today, “H€|| I’ll gladly go to the first major that calls and then use THAT major as a stepping stone to where I REALLY want to go, but that begs the question of where you do REALLY want to go and realize after a few years seniority is going to pretty well lock you in to where you sit if you sit there very long.

And airlines DO go extinct, even MAJOR airlines. Even airlines that were once THE place to be. History Is littered with big names that were once highly desirable but nonetheless went under. PanAm, TWA, Braniff, to name only a few. And the senior guys at those airlines, after a decade or two of building seniority, often got to start over somewhere else AT THE BOTTOM.

So just a bit of advice, watch what is going on on the major threads. The cheapest experience you can get is watching what is happening to someone else.

Sorry.......

Do you have any idea how bad working conditions are at the best regional compared to the worst major? Unless you’re in the last 10 years of your career it always makes sense to move on.

I can honestly say the very best day ever at the regional was still worse that the very worst day I have ever had where I am now.... and I'm just at a decent ACMI and love what I do now.

Jeez, talk about being detached from reality.

Not sure if the point of this, not many people leave one major to go to another.

I think at my carrier we had 20 people leave last year for other carriers. That’s less than 1% of the pilot group. At this point I’m sure most of them (except for the ones who went to UPS and FedEx) are regretting it.

Never said different. What I said was learn from what is going on to help you decide what your ultimate destination is going to be. Do you have an issue with that?

Live below your means and invest all of your spare money into cash-flowing assets so that it eventfully outgrows your flying income. Then if your airline goes under (or you lose your medical) you'll have another source of income to fall back on.

Yes.

Most regional pilots are not afforded a choice of destinations. If you get a call at all, you hit the lottery and go.

I flew with quite a few pilots at my regional (people with 20-35 years left) who only had 1 airline they wanted to work for, Apps were not out anywhere else. I think his point is use this time to see what your “dream airline” is like in bad times, which is honestly great advice.

signed,
someone who recently left a regional.