Oh for sure. It's just frustrating when you hear somebody look at people like them and then turn around to a panicked CFI who can't get hired anywhere and go "SeE? You can SkiP tHE rEgiOnALs"

 

Completely agree. It's possible, but you need something a little "extra" in your resume.

 

There are and will be plenty of jobs. It’s just a question of who will be hiring

 

…. But you need to UNDERSTAND the issue.



They have a shortage of regional CAPTAINS that cannot be offset by pumping in new wet ATPs at the bottom of the seniority list. Hiring at the majors is so high that Regional CAs are (on average) being hired away before they complete 1000 hours as a 121 CA. Since it took the airline 1000 hours of some other CAs flying time to get those CAs they are losing upgradeable to begin with, that causes a net loss of CAs. Normally you need an excess of CAs over FOs to offset the fact that CAs (as a group) get more vacation time and use more sick time (and know how to get soft time better) than the FOs.

BUT YIOU CANNOT FLY A SINGLE TRIP WITHOUT A CA IN THAT SEAT, SO THIS IS A LIMITING CONSTRAINT. And it takes 1000 hours of 121 time (or applicable 135 time) to become ELIGIBLE to upgrade to 121 CA at any level, regional or major.

Making the situation worse is that the second tier majors (think Frontier, Spirit, Alaska, Jet Blue, Allegiant, etc) are losing so many people to the legacies that regional FOs who do have some 121 experience are being hired away before they even become upgrade eligible which means that there are fewer and fewer replacements for the regional CAs being hired away to the legacies. And while you CAN replace those guys with wet ATPs, those were those guys will never Be regional CAs now, making the shortage more acute and lowering the average 121 time in the regional FO pool still further.

Which is WHY the regionals are shrinking.

Lord knows the regionals have done what they could, boosting CA salary considerably, forcing mandatory upgrades of eligible FOs who would have preferred to ride the top of the FO seniority list until they got their base of choice with seniority as a CA, paying CA pay for high time FOs, and paying big bonuses and longevity pay to new hire FOs approaching upgrade eligibility from previous 121 flying and direct entry captains, but the cupboard is getting pretty bare for the latter group.

The regionals woukd LOVE to hire you if they had the CAs to fly you, they’ve got millions of dollars of aircraft parked, but the system has a constraint that won’t let them.

So sure, put out applications to all of them. But put out apps to anywhere else that will get you meaningful multi engine turbine hours, including the ULCCS and meaningful 135 flying (think JSX) . Go with whoever gets you the first class date.

 

When the legacies start offering longevity for years of service, then you know it has gotten really desperate.

 

Absolutely spot on. Well written.

 

You are nervous about finding a job in the greatest pilot market ever? Dang, you should just quit flight training

 

Can someone post the updated numbers / percentages of jets per regional that is currently parked? Tia

 

I don’t think anyone tracks that robustly in real-time. Especially because how active the non-parked airframes are is significant

 

Yeah. A number of personnel limited airlines just decrease average hours of utilization in lieu of completely parking the aircraft. Hangar queens - that is, aircraft that just sit and don’t fly - have their own set of problems. So most airlines use a combination of parking aircraft at places like Kingman Az and Roswell NM, and just flying each of the aircraft that are not parked less hours a day.



EMB-145s parked at Kingman