Regional pilot numbers
 

Out of curiosity, can anybody share roughly what their most recent seniority list shows? Would be interesting to track who is growing/shrinking in light of the new pay rates at numerous carriers.

Endeavor :1990. We are shrinking

Mesa was around 850ish

Republic Airways:
September:
901 CA
1093 FO
1994total bidders.
October:
872 CA
1128 FO
2000 total bidders

Air Wisconsin 470

SkyWest: 4,996

Piedmont: 712 as of August 30. Growing.

Down from about 6K a year ago?

Yup, and we’ve hired over 2,000 so do the math. Pilots hired 4 years ago at OO are under 40% total seniority.

A year ago 1300.

Envoy 1,933 as of 8/1.

Gojet: 408 pilots for Sept. bid period

What was this # approximately 6 months ago?

I counted 581 actually flying the line last month. That includes the 737 pilots.

Feb 2021 Gojet had 552 on the union list.

Gojet have typically had 1/3 to 1/2 their pilot group in the training pipeline.

Will increase exponentially

You use that word “exponentially.” It does not mean what you think it means…

Inigo Montoya

I’m not actually sure there are enough unspoken for ATPs out there for ANYONE to increase exponentially today.

The real story is how many CAs and CA-qualified FOs do regionals have on their seniority lists. Because new hires aren’t an issue. Regional CAs are the issue. As for the big pay increases I suspect there will be some shuffling of regional pilots between carriers, but that’s about it. Ultimately the solution for regionals is for the flying to be done on a mainline seniority list by mainline pilots. Money to stay at a regional only works to a point.

Start hiring into bases and cut down on overnights and I'd dust off my atp.

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Seniority.

There's usually a late PM arrival and an early AM departure. So you either have to do overnights, or standups.

Doesn’t sound like the airlines are for you.

New hires are an issue if you are throwing around terms like “exponentially”. But yeah, the MOST limiting factor currently is losing CAs and high 121 time FOs before you can generate enough additional CAs and high 121 time FOs to replace them, which creates a negative feedback loop. But there is hardly an “exponential” amount of ATP eligible waiting in the wings either..l

That’s probably why they’re not currently flying for an airline…

Standups are the way to go if you live in base and can live off min guarantee. Home every day .

What’s a standup? Non airline dude here

That is when you fly the last flight in and first flight out in the morning, with maybe 5-7 hours in a hotel because you are technically on duty all night and off all day when you get back to base. If your evening flight is delayed it can be an even shorter night. Some people who live in base like them because they are home more than four day trips and it’s fairly easy work for minimum guarantee. Those who don’t nap well during the day hate standup overnights.

Hey thanks.
Not a napper - sounds rough.

I have a lot of GA pilot friends with 1500 hours who work professional jobs. If the regional airlines did those and one other thing, they would see a lot more resumes.

-Hire into bases
-Cut down on overnights (1-2 day trips work best)
-Allow part time employment (half time lines or half the number of reserve days)

So they wind up with the same training and currency requirements for half of a junior pilot? I don’t think anyone is THAT desperate yet. Especially since the lack of upgradeable FOs is a serious problem already. Splitting the available right seat time amongst a bevy of part timers would make that problem even worse.

I know some international companies offer 3/4, 1/2, etc schedules. Shame that such options are opposed by US employers. I have friends that would be interested. Heck, might even consider it myself

That can't happen with an established seniority system. You can't give new hires a base for which there is a waiting list with old hires waiting to get in.

A startup regional might be able to do it... no union, they could have local vice global seniority lists . Eventually the startup would have a union, but if they hired carefully, and most pilots were happy with the local emphasis then the union might let it persist. UPS drivers have this, you can move to another city but your seniority starts at the bottom.


This is like saying that you'd be a firefighter if you only had to work 9-5. That's just not how the industry works...

1. PAX, especially biz travellers want to be able make their hub connection and arrive at the destination in time to do something production, hence early am departures.
2. Same for the return, they want to be productive before they fly home so they need that late arrival from the hub.
3. Airlines want airplanes flying as close to 20 hours/day as possible. When an airplane sits it generates no revenue, but you have to pay for mortgage, insurance, parking space, and calendar-based Mx.

That math ain't changin' boys.

Only way to "avoid" overnights is standups... a lot of people actually like that because you have the day off, you just don't get to sleep in your own bed.

They already do that for FA's, and it could make a lot of sense at some point in the future. But *right now* there's a HUGE problem with part time pilots....

Part time FA's require the same recurrent training as full-time. But they can just throw more FA's in a recurrent class.

Part time pilots also require the same recurrent training and checking as full time... but regionals are currently SEVERELY limited on training bandwidth, sim capacity and even more so on the availability of check airmen who are all bailing for legacies. So they'd have to go out on a limb and hope that enough part-timers would stick around long enough to justify spending twice the training resources per block/hour flown.

Check out Allegiant then...

Re: overnights

“ I want to be a cop as long as I don’t have to carry a gun and enforce the law “. Basically what you saying, but for the airline industry

PSA has 1800-1900 and flows half of what you guys flow.. that’s insane

Would be interesting to see the numbers six months ago, and check again end of the year. Thanks all

488 at Commutair

C.O.D.'s (Continuous On Duty) trips went very senior back in the 90's at USAir. You typically worked 10 of them in a month and you were done. For more than 4 hours between flights you got a hotel room.
There was an old joke about "How do you get a C.O.D. F/A into the cockpit? Grease the door frame and put a Snickers bar on the floor". F/A's loved the trips because they were very short flights with no service required. They rarely even got out of their seats.

They don’t hire into bases. It’s still company wide seniority. Check out their thread to say what “day” trips are really like for the junior crowd.

Its not . I’ve done it b4 . Go to work around 1030-11 at night , fly to an outstation . Get a 3-4 hour nap and fly back into the hub by 7-730 am and go home . All day off at home .
Once again, if you live in base and are ok with min guarantee, have a spouse that makes good money or have a second source of income, it’s the way to go .

That’s a graveyard shift and it sounds ****ing terrible. Once or twice not a big deal but doing it every day? Gross.