Regional CA Upgrade Times
 

Curious what regional CA upgrade times are looking like these days. I know it varies by carrier, but are we back to pre-2023 timelines or still relatively quick? Hearing mixed things from guys at different regionals.

Are you really asking for upgrade times among all the regionals?!

I'd say 1000-3000 hours, 1 year after hitting mins to 5 years.

define relatively quick…. During the lost decade guys waited 11 years to upgrade at a regional and there were no mainline jobs to go to. After about 14 years they made it to a legacy. They then sat right seat another 10 years..

so, what’s relatively quickly?

Even upgrading at 3,000 TT is a gift by historical standards.


The real story is don’t even look at it. Upgrade times change fast and often. With all the increased mainline hiring, it’s about to drop again. Trying to,pick a regional by upgrade times is frankly stupid. It will change before you get hired, and again while your building hours.

Go to a regional where you don’t have to commute, if the music ever stops, and just based upon history it will again…. You want to be someplace you could stay at if you had to. For this same reason, your regional contracts DO matter. You don’t give anything up ever. That’s how the race the bottom started last time.

Give us this, we’ll grow the regional bigger, you’ll upgrade faster, get your pic faster and go to a legacy faster. Big clue, you don’t want the regional to grow. You want the legacy to grow.
Then they’ll demand more concessions to be competitive and avoid downsizing or you’ll lose your left seat and never get enough pic to leave.

The unions have a chance to make a standard pilot contract that matches each other across the industry while we still have some leverage, that removes the we have to be cheaper pilots than them because their costs are less and they will get the contracts. Make our pay/benefits the same and there’s no cost advantage to whipsaw.

Regional Ca upgrade times are driven by statute (must have 1000 121 SIC time) and loss of those senior to you (both FO and CA) to the majors. Major hiring has decreased rather dramatically in the past from 12-13k annually in 2022-2023 to less than 5k in 2024 and 2025.

https://www.fapa.aero/pilot-hiring-history

Currently the peak of age 65 retirements is still a year or so ahead but hiring from regionals is being adversely affected by furloughs and people jumping ship from NK. While there will be some expansion once Boeing, Airbus, and P&W get their supply chains and quality control straightened out it is likely that major hiring will be back toward the historical norm once all those things shake out of ~4000 - 4500 pilots a year.

Some of those will be direct from the military hires and Part 91 guys but someone applying to a regional today should probably anticipate at least 3 years to become eligible for upgrade and then spending at least another three years as a regional CA before moving on unless they have prior military or other TPIC experience. Of course a black swan event could make that worse - much worse.

If you are starting intro at a regional today you have 18,000 regional guys senior to you, and probably 8000 are FOs who will upgrade before you.

Whatever you are hearing is, at best, the time for people who started 18 months ago.

The tails of the bell curve are

1) Majors Hiring at Vne - you saw that post-covid. Unlikely to return
2) Majors not hiring at all - essentially impossible over the next decade as baby boom finishes retirement.

So the best expectation is something that fits within historical norms. It will take a few years, FO's will compete for upgrades.

Addendum:

Things may be slightly slower than the historical norm because NK (Spirit) is in bankruptcy for the second time in a year following a court refusal to allow it to merge, and Chapter 7 is a distinct possibility. Already about two thousand pilots with major airline experience and a type rating in Airbus 320 series aircraft have hit the market through furlough or attrition and the legacies are snapping these people up, if NK does go chapter 7, the remaining ~2000 pilots will also be competing - generally quite successfully - for legacy hiring slots. That alone can be expected to extend the time for regional pilots to go to the majors (and free up regional CA slots) by a full year.

Frontier also lost money in 2025, becoming profitable (~45 million) in the 4th quarter but not nearly enough to make up for the $190 million loss in the first three quarters. They are trying to convert from their historic ULCC model to a more economically viable one. They may or may not be successful but - at least for awhile - they do not appear to be looking towards expansion and with a fairly young workforce will probably continue to limit their hiring from historical levels.

that brings us to B6 (JetBlue) which was also affected by the DOJ and court decision to deny merger with NK. B6 has lost ~$1.4 billion over the last two years and are in the process of trying to convert their LCC model to something more economically viable. They have done little if any hiring this year according to FAPA

https://www.fapa.aero/pilot-hiring-history

Next up is American Airlines Group. The good news is that they had record revenue this year ($54 billion) but the bad news is that they had a fairly measly $111 million in profit in 2025, down over 80% from 2024. They are handicapped by needing to devote a fair share of what would have been profit to debt service (about $1.7 billion a year in principal and interest) and are successfully managing early repayment on some of the principal.

now the good news is that United and Delta are just sort of printing money and all three of the larger legacies still have fairly high retirements for the next several years, but it really does appear that things are “reverting to the mean” and that’s going to slow major hiring with consequent slowing of regional upgrade quite a bit compared to the recent past.

Really appreciate everyone taking the time to share real-world timelines and experiences. This is exactly the kind of info that helps people make better decisions. Thanks again.

Rjet: 1200hrs since hire 5/2024. Upgrade is 5/2026.

disagree with your timeline, therecwere roughly 18,000 regional pilots back in the early teens before the shrinking. Today there are probably only roughly 16,000-17,000 regional pilots… if that, it may be even less now. Mainline hiring alone will be over 7,500 pilots this year. That will suck 75% of current regional captains and even some lucky FO’s right out of the regional system…. Not including folks leaving for very good ACMI jobs,

by the end of summer, you’ll see guys upgrading as soon as they hit 1000 121 or other qualifying 135 time. You’ll see street hire captains again by 2027….and at more carriers again, as well as more double time pay.

The current glut of CFI’s waiting since hiring slowed in mid to late 2024 will only fulfill the need a short time. We were recently producing 10,000 new ATP’s each year, but that includes those getting their type/ATP as a new hire. In the 20 teens we produced about 2,000 new ATP’s a year.

You are as entitled to your opinion as I am to mine and the good thing about being a pessimist is that most of your surprises are happy ones. But right now NK is in its second bankruptcy, and still burning money, JetBlue is losing money although they hope to break even by 2007, and Frontier - while making a modest 4th quarter profit - still lost $137 million for the year and is downsizing by 20 A320s (and associated crews) in an attempt to get back in the black. American, despite record revenue of $54.6 BILLION, only netted a profit of $237 MILLION. Southwest Airlines is doing better but right now they are sort of hamstrung by Boeing’s years long delay in getting the MAX7 certified.

The majors as a group hired 300 less in 2025 than they did in 2024, 7500 less than in 2023, 800 less than in 2022, and 1500 less than in 2021, and about 2000 of those who were hired were hired from NK who was furloughing and displacing people.

https://www.fapa.aero/pilot-hiring-history



Now you also have the retiring/separating military pilots to figure into your calculations (United has a special program for them). https://careers.united.com/us/en/uni...-pilot-program
as does Delta. https://www.deltatakingaction.com/co...ry-pilots.html
Historically, 75% of retiring/separating military fixed wing pilots become major airline pilots.

Now I’m not trying to rain on anybody’s picnic but if you look at the FAPA numbers major hiring has hit 7500 or better only twice in the past 25 years, the total hired in the 25 year span was 85,019 for an average of 3408 a year. And that’s actually an over count because as many as 15% of those are people who may have started at a ULCC or LCC or cargo then jumped to their career major after acquiring more experience.

What we are seeing is a regression toward the mean. The two years of extremely high hiring was largely an artifact of the majors that offered people early retirement early in COVID and the unexpectedly fast recovery of flying from COVID.

It’s not that I don’t wish regional folks well, most of us started our 121 career there, but the real story is a lot more complicated than your analysis IMHO.

Correction to typo (above)
 

The part where it says hired 800 less in 2025 than 2022 should have been 8000 less.

I’ll put my proven crystal ball against yours or most other folks.

It’s going to be fast enough to clear out the candidate pool waiting and drive upgrades back to 121.436 minimums
the regional training contracts are dropping like rocks in arbitration and courts so those junior captains will be leaving quickly also

For them to leave they will have to have someplace to go. For the last three years, United has been doing a major expansion, hiring about 6000 pilots during that time. AA has been hiring heavily and Delta too to a lesser extent. And as a consequence, they wound up hiring people less experienced and - more importantly for the purpose of this discussion - YOUNGER than the historical norms. But nobody can rapidly expand forever because there is admittedly an increasing but still finite demand out there. As I have posted, only UA and Delta are making serious money. NK has been forced into bankruptcy (twice) and has severely cut back their flying with concomitant furloughs, downgrades, and displacements. F9 has the same business model as NK and while not yet in bankruptcy is dealing with many of the same problems. . WN is trying to change its business model to better handle competition with the Big Three. Most of the rest of the majors are fairly small and also have very young pilot groups on average.

Young pilot groups mean few retirements from the group and for the Big Three their retirements will peak shortly and then decline for a long time due to the relatively young (by historical standards) people recently hired. These are the near term numbers:

alt=""https://i.postimg.cc/vHmMBHZS/IMG-7927.jpg

Perhaps United and Delta can keep on expanding for a few more years. Perhaps NK can avoid Chapter 7 and sending another 2k of highly experienced A320 series pilots to the other majors. Perhaps Boeing can get the MAX7 certified and pump up the hiring for WN for a few years. Perhaps we’ll get into it with Iran and the military will invoke stop loss and separating/retiring military fixed wing fliers won’t be taking up 1k to 1.5k of the major new hire CJOs like they have been for the last…forever. On the other hand, Age 67 or single pilot ops could bring hiring to a near stop for anywhere from a couple of years to a couple of decades. Lots of things CAN happen.

But the era of quick hiring to the majors FROM THE REGIONALS seems to be approaching an end. A few more years of major expansion are likely to saturate the market and increased demand in many areas will be managed by upguaging from CRJs and EMB170s to A220s, MAX7s, and A320s. At that point hiring to the majors will be governed pretty much by replacement of retiring pilots which for the foreseeable future is going to be 3000 or less, and with all the very young people hired in the last 4-5 years, likely much less in the next two or three decades. And historically at least 1k of these will be military retirees, although some of these might do the regional touch and go.

Now all things are possible, but some are a whole lot more probable than others. Personally, I don’t believe in “proven” crystal balls, or trust in the predictions of those who do.

Why your crystal ball is optimistic…
 

alt=""https://i.postimg.cc/zf6G6M23/IMG-7940.jpg

Because regional pilots are also competing against retiring/separating fixed wing military pilots who are recruited even before they have left active duty and then fast tracked into the majors…

Which regionals have dropped the hiring contracts as the result of arbitration or court ruling? The one RPA introduced in May 2023 was upheld when it finally had its day in court (IAM lost that battle) so that contract remains with some mods, but they weren't forced by the court.

your own graph shows almost 3,000 a year for the next decade and a half.
what is your definition of going to a legacy quick?
the movement will be brisk, they’ll get their 1,000 121 PIC and be gone. At the peak they’ll be grabbing them under 1,000 PIC. I think the days of FO’s going from finishing OE and consolidating to poof off to a legacy are over without excellent connections or lots of military time.
not eceybody being hired is 25 year old kids. They’re doing a much better job of hiring at multiple age brackets. You won’t see a massive baby boom retirement like the perfect storm we’re just about on the back half of.
these guys coming on now are going to have the fantastic careers we all should have had. It’s about time. Guys in our time did very well over time, these guys will do great. Well overdue

Could you please find me a chart of the airline industry growing aggressively for a decade and a half straight?

All of this sophomoric analysis is taking the last 3 years and extrapolating it linearly into the future. About 100 years of industry history disputes that.

Regional FOs will upgrade quickly until regional CAs stop getting hired somewhere else quickly. Maybe that will be in 3 years, maybe it will be in 5. But it will definitely be.

After that regional CA and FO salaries will go down. A few years later all CA and FO salaries will go down. Are we the generation smart enough to stop what has happened since the DC-3? I'm going to take the under, even though I wish it were not so.

3000 a year TOTAL HIRING of which ~1200 a year will be from the military fixed wing retired and separating leaving ~1800 a year spread among people from the Part 91 and Part 135 world as well as the 121 world. Currently, regional flyers number ~ 18,000 pilots, meaning if All Hiring was done from only the regional pilots, that would mean that someone starting today could expect to go to a major in about ten years. Of course, that is a simplification, because some pilots WILL be hired from the Part 91 world and some regional pilots will NEVER make it into the majors and some odds and sods will come in from Canada or flying SIC from foreign flag carriers, even foreign military (I know a couple of former Canadian military airline pilots).

So yeah, barring massive expansion it’ll be somewhat of a bell shaped curve with the median somewhere maybe 9-11 years, slower for the guys picking up a DUI or some training failures along the way, faster from some guy marrying a major airline CEOs homely daughter,
​​​​​​​

The question will be to what degree mild-moderate expansion happens. 2-3% a year major growth with the regionals scope-choked speeds progression considerably.

Airports and airspace already at max capacity so where is all this growth going to go? Into Ghana? I realize that Kirby has grandiose plans but the guy is foolish and his growth won't happen unless he acquires another airline (Jetblue) which will not impact overall hiring, as a matter of fact may it may hinder it as one airline can hire more efficiently then two.

Really nothing has changed. Pilots that want to move on need to be continuously improving their resume. Get that 1000 TPIC as soon as they can and if they still don't get bites, then move onto a ULCC or ACMI for more type ratings in bigger aircraft.

As I said, the good thing about being a pessimist is that all your surprises are pleasant ones. And indeed, Bain and Company (https://www.bain.com) a top global management consulting firm is predicting a 2.4% annual GLOBAL increase in airline aircraft.

alt=""https://i.postimg.cc/m2WBcdJp/IMG-7946.jpg

The problem with that prediction is it is global, and includes the foreign aircraft market in places like India and China that will be growing exceedingly fast and while some American pilots go that route to get right seat time in major aircraft types despite relatively low total time (at relatively low wages) that doesn’t mean that US majors are going to be growing anywhere near that fast. In 2025 only three majors did 82% of the hiring; Delta (500), United (1574) and American (1637). Some of that hiring was from NK.

At its peak in 2023 NK employed about 3500 pilots. They’ve furloughed 600 and because of downgrades and Chapter 7 fears they’ve lost a lot of others and are now down to about 2400 pilots and about 175 aircraft from a previous fleet of 220. Now in their SECOND bankruptcy in a year they hope to emerge from it this summer with a fleet of about 100 aircraft. Their pilot pay has recently been cut 8% and their retirement in half. I wouldn’t count on them for any growth soon.

https://www.reuters.com/legal/litiga...cy-2026-02-24/

F9 (Frontier) hired 246 in 2025, mostly to replace pilots that moved on to one of the Big Three, which sort of results in an unavoidable double count in the FAPA numbers, FAPA estimates such things lead to as much as a 15% over count in their hiring figures.

F9 lost $137 million in 2025. They have announced plans to return 24 leased aircraft early and to defer 69 aircraft that were on order. Not sure I’d count on them for any of that growth either.

American Airlines hired 1637 pilots in 2025 - more than either of the other Big Three. They made $111 million profit in 2025 (down from $846 million in 2024) on revenues of $54.6 BILLION for a net profit margin of 0.2%, performance so bad compared to their peers that both the pilots union and FA unions are demanding from the board of directors that management practices be changed.

https://www.thehrdigest.com/american-airlines-pilots-union-demand-decisive-action-from-management/

https://onemileatatime.com/news/american-flight-attendants-demand-management-change/

Not sure I’d count on them for a lot of growth anytime soon either.


B6 (JetBlue) had a net loss of $602 million in 2025 (an improvement from their net loss of $795 million in 2024).


…….

There’s an old riddle/joke:

What’s the easiest way to become a millionaire?

The answer? Be a billionaire and buy an airline.

There is nothing about this business that is easy, and its history is littered with carnage and debris (TWA, PanAm, etc.). Even without Mideast wars, pandemics, economic downturns, Age 67, etc., it’s a risky business. And while I will concede that optimists are frequently happier souls than us pessimists, I wouldn’t count my chicks before they are hatched if I were you.

But I certainly HOPE you are right.

Not all airports and airspace is at capacity. In fact most are not.

Also growth is commonly in gauge, ie larger aircraft on the same routes. That doesn't add pilot headcount, but in increases pilot pay.

If demand for travel increases steadily, something for it. Upgauging for sure. More flights from medium size airports to distant hubs, Eg delta flying Raleigh to Salt Lake. And that some point people may open new hubs. If you go down the list of top 25 airline markets, eventually run out of hubs. Number 16 or whatever might become a hub.

aleays been that way, no change

very true……..

Precisely. And at average levels of hiring (regression to the mean) and at average levels of age related retirement (again, regression to the mean) those quasi-guaranteed priority hires will be a far larger proportion of the hiring at majors than they have been during the recent hiring and current retirement surge. Even the current levels of hiring may be quickly lessened if $100 a barrel oil continues (or worsens). But if military hiring is “no change” the decrease must come disproportionately from the population of non former military. That - disproportionately - decreases regional flyer progression.

Personally, I doubt we’ll see worst case scenarios but there is little to suggest hiring will be anything like the two years post COVID when hiring went wild.

The good news - major hiring is modestly ahead of last year at this time.

The bad news - a lot of regional CJOs are stacked up:

https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/r...-thread-2.html

And

$150 a barrel oil is going to cause future slowdowns if it persists.

absent a pandemic or global war we’re going to see brisk hiring. Will it be the perfect storm hiring after COVID, no…. But it will be much much better than the lost decade you and I went through. They’ll go from student to legacy captain in the time it took us to get from student to a regional jet job after a few years of turboprops. They’ll be a legacy captain with the TT we had as a senior regional FO waiting to upgrade.

that’s fact, and it’s a good thing career wise.

the problem I see is the race to the bottom is starting again.

For the regionals, yes. That's how the system is designed.

Actually it more kind of evolved into that, but they sure like what they cultivated.

It’s a half hour long…
 

But well worth the time:

https://youtu.be/yepvhknoGyk?si=wDRCzlGkCA1anYBU

This was well presented. Another thing that should be accounted for when assuming the airline pipeline is based on all those commercial pilots should be somehow factoring in all the pilots who drop out of the pursuit.

One way might be to see how many 2nd class medical are renewed. Or how many 1st class medical as well. There are likely a lot of pilots who got to the 200-500 hour range and have tapped out due to the reality of how competitive it is and how much more they have to invest to get to atp minimums (and then still need many more hours to be even considered). Not to mention they need to make money to live.

Really? Say that to Jacksonville or New York Center.

On the other hand, not mentioned was the competition from military aviators. 25-30 years ago, as many as two thirds of legacy pilots were ex military FW pilots. But even today, as many As 30% of legacy hires are ex military. Several legacies have special recruitment programs (ay United it’s UMPP) that can essentially get them CJOs as soon as they leave active duty.

The point is, the FW guys have the inside track at legacies - just as the RW guys take up positions on the regional rosters. And the ex military preferential hires come at the expense - for queuing purposes - of the major hiring jobs available for strictly civilian applicants. Effectively they decrease the slots available for purely civilian hires from ~4000 a year to ~3000 a year. Not criticizing that or celebrating it, but it is reality.

And now, with the Army cutting back on their RW guys, they are getting into the act as well with reduced hours for an RATP and a whole lot of flying experience that is transferable.

As for tracking physicals, most second class physical don’t cost any more than third class and -depending on age - a first class may not cost much more either, so it isn’t uncommon for people to have physicals of a higher class than they actually require. And first class can revert to second or even third class over time.

So people can be flying and building hours to become competitive - and certainly for the number necessary for an ATP - without actually needing a second class. Not saying the physicals might not give you trends, but accurate numbers woukd be hard to tease out.

This has always been a "buy low" industry... if you stick it out and do the sets and reps during the downturn, when things pick up you'll be one of many hundreds of people who have exactly the experience they're looking for... as hiring ramps up to many thousands.

That's easier for some to manage than others, depends on personal/family circumstances.

As Excargo said, I don't think you can get much from FAA medical info... too many permutations as to who needs what medical, when it can lapse, when it needs renewal.

There’s trouble coming.

20,000 new commercial certificates in a year isn’t remotely feasible in an industry which is going to retire 30,000 over the next decade

But is that brand new initial first-time ever CPL's?

How many are PPL's getting a CPL for insurance (it will pay for itself in short order).

Or people getting type rating, category, or class add-ons? I could go get several CPL add-ons just for fun...

Also how many are foreigners who are going to return home to fly? One of my CFI gigs back in the day was nothing but that.

that’s one example but the data is robust from multiple directions. 2025 was the all-time record. 2023/2024 weren’t far behind. CFI numbers are up substantially.

Not all of those 20,000 will chase airline jobs but that’s just one year.

https://www.bls.gov/ooh/transportati...lots.htm#tab-6

BLS is anticipating only about a 4% growth over the 2024-2034 period for airline pilots. If they are correct, then airline hiring will only modestly exceed those retiring, barring single pilot ops or some other issue..

alt=""https://i.ibb.co/S4brRwPy/494-C56-FC...0828-D70-E.jpg

18,000 per year for the next decade sounds like far more than we saw from 2008-2018.

You apparently missed the AND COMMERCIAL PILOTS part of that. Legions of CFIs, part 135 guys (and gals). A 104% increase in AIRLINE pilots means 4% more than the number retiring. And the two year period in which the majors hired 25,000 means they dipped down sharply in experience levels AND AGE. What that means is that a lot of 25-35 year olds got hired which depresses the average age of the major airline pilot group. Retirement numbers are already starting to fall as the boomers attrit out of the system and the recent influx of younger than traditional hires will somewhat depress new hiring too until they attrit out in 30-40 years. It’s really an interesting exercise of queuing theory.

Hiring at majors isn’t exactly a zero sum game with retirements - there is growth - but it’s a lot more modest growth than the training schools tell you. Of course, they’ve got their legions of CFIs who need students to get their hours to become competitive. And of course, the slower the hiring becomes, the more TT, turbine time, TPIC, college degree, volunteer hours, etc, you are going to need to become competitive.