The problem with SKW is everything slowed way down, from interview to LOE, could be six months to a year if you apply today.

 

I can't agree about AA. I have many friends there and they say despite all the other problems their company has, their training department is top notch.

Republic is great. Personal experience.
PSA is horrible. 1st hand accounts from friends. High attrition, poor organization, Bad APDs. Though my understanding is that improvements have been made in the last couple years by the new director of training.

That's all I got.

 

Thank you, I think they would be best shot at an in-domicile base, too.

 

I'd agree.

Also simply due to their size (and the high turnover in the regional biz), they train far more pilots than other regionals, and most of the majors, so they can't afford to waste resources (or trainees).

I may have said this to the OP before, but doing a DEC program after not flying for that long would be some serious sketch. As badly as the regionals might need you, there are regulatory limits on how much extra training they're allowed to give.

 

I have a good friend who was in a similar situation to you, former navy pilot, came out right before 9/11 so couldn't find a pilot position when 9/11 happened. With the current pilot shortage he decided to go for it. He went and got current at a local airport, just took him a few hours, it came back quickly. He submitted his resume to a number of regionals this fall because he didn't have enough turbine time for majors or what ULCCs were saying they required (although that has changed now at some). He got several CJOs and decided to go with Mesa because they offered the quickest start date. And with things getting backed up on FO training that seemed like the priority, get flying as soon as possible. He had some reservations because there is a lot of negative comments about Mesa historically, but he has said the training is very good. It has exceeded his expectations. There are delays between SIT and SIMs, a couple of weeks, and there is possibly a delay to IOE, not sure yet. But after his experience, I wouldn't hesitate to sign on there if they give you a good start date.

 

That part of my comment was 100% sarcasm. The post I replied to said class sizes over 30 are always bad and smaller is always better.
AA, Delta, United all have classes way over 30 and no-one can say they have bad training.

 

Second'd Mesa. I flew with a captain there who hasn't flown for 20 years and had a career change. Decided to go to the regionals at about 55 or so years old. He succeeded at Mesa.

I'm a PSA "washout", and Mesa sets you up for success. Instructors there are active line pilots and teach very very well. Everyone is so nice there, the fellow students, line check airmen, captains, instructors, APDs, etc. No one is out to get you there and everyone, from the instructors to the APD's wish nothing but your success. The line check airmen who did my IOE, I felt like we became brothers at the end, fantastic guy.

There were VERY few failures there that were well deserved and not debriefing items; such as initiating a turn on the missed, before the missed approach marker. Or initiating a decent when you weren't supposed to. Even the students themselves admitted they needed to be failed. You never see anyone there complain that a check-ride failure was not deserved. The APD's are honest, and the small honest mistakes you DO do, it is just a debriefing item in the debrief room... and you tell yourself not to do it on IOE, get your ATP cert, and walk out the room... its just a small lesson learned. That's all.

Highly recommend Mesa, I'm happy here, and we have junior FO's who break 130k/year with a line; junior captains who break $180k/year with a line, senior LCA's who break $300k/year with a line. APD rates are through the roof. We are all also in the Aviate program, so looking forward to the United flow.

Nothing like PSA at all. The training quality and department is so much better than PSA. They actually care about you at Mesa and are happy to have you part of the team.

 

I personally had a great experience with the Air Wisconsin training department, despite the earlier post to the contrary. To each their own, I suppose.