Eagle and Republic are both good carriers. Eagle definitely offers stability, great training facilities, wide variety of equipment and base choices. But the upgrades are long (6yrs approx) and have historically been so. Eagle is currently in negotiations to extend or improve their flowthrough agreement with AA. The chances are slim, but if this happens then there could be some hope of career advancement opportunity with Eagle.

Currently I would recommend Eagle to anyone who wants to live in one of our bases, and is financially prepared to sit in the right seat as an FO for 6+yrs. If you are not concerned with upgrades or making a decent paycheck then AE is a good place to come and take a gamble with the flowthrough. If your career aspirations are to be an RJ CA for life then this isnt a bad place to do that as well.

I am by no means bad-mouthing AE. I work here and enjoy it, but I do wish to educate those who are considering applying here. It is a big decision to make, so be sure to learn all you can about any carrier before you start as a newhire.

 

Stable meaning no growth. At least they don't have any Captain attrition!
Recently? Well, Continental hasn't for a long while, not to mention UPS, FedEx, Southwest, jetBlue (granted, new), Spirit, airTran, Midwest Airlines, etc.
Well, except for the fact that they have Captains making $125k-$150k, have no forseeable end in sight for their woefully unbalanced seniority list, their flowthrough negotiations going nowhere, and any and all incentive programs discontinued (whether for good or for bad remains to be seen), I guess you could call them efficient. Not to mention schedulers who may or may not know what the actual contract states in terms of duty time and reserve releases.*
Depends on what you're using to define "largest airline".
Um, I fail to see the correlation between your evidence and your conclusion.
It seems as though that is based on speculation, without actual regard to AMR scope clauses.
Tell that to the 2400 pilots who to this day remain furloughed, not to mention the fact that flowthrough doesn't apply to new hires.
See (*) in my third paragraph, but other than that, you're actually right on this note; that they are above industry par because of their work rules. Then again, they are competing with some really lofty competition, and I wouldn't necessarily stack their work rules against a handful of other regionals, Skywest, RAH, and AWAC coming to mind.
Well, they're 7 on the turbos and 8 on the jet, and that's with the 400 or so they've managed to hire this year. I wouldn't be surprised if it fell to 4-5/5-6, but honestly, with regionals like Skywest, RAH, and AWAC out there (hell, you even upgrade faster at Piedmont), why would you go to Eagle? While I'll be the first to say that it terrifies me that a person who got hired at 200TT is getting upgraded into the left seat of a vessel carrying 50 lives at just over a year when they get 1500TT, hopefully you don't need 5k-6k hours to gain enough experience to feel comfortable taking command of the situation. Now, while you're right in saying that you'll never have to interview for an aviation job again, let's just pretend that somebody decided to. If you want to advance to a major airline, the likelihood is that that major would like at least some sort of turbine command time, whether they post it in their minimums or not. It's not that they want you to go through the hassle of getting there or pay your dues or anything like that, it's that they know you're going to be a Captain at their airline someday, and they'd rather not be the airline to find out if you have what it takes to Captain an aircraft.

Anyway, if you couldn't tell, I think RAH is the better choice. Aside from (in my opinion) better work rules and a less hostile management, I think they have a brighter future than Eagle, partly because they're able to keep costs relatively low. While they don't have the "Complete IOE to put in your upgrade bid" upgrade times, they're reasonable taking both a pilot's future ambitions and need for operational experience into account. With a great pilot group and HQ people who aren't actively out to exploit you (mistakes happen), the working environment is a step above. It certainly has its problems, hell, any regional does (and even majors), but I think they're at least a cut above Eagle.

That being said, it's certainly good to look for advise and insight on these boards, make sure that you take your own interests into account when making these decisions.

Now, while Eagle is certainly far from being one of the worst regionals, it doesn't pay a service to our fellow pilots to sugarcoat the truth. What does it matter to me if another pilot picks my airline? If my airline works for me, works for them, and they're a good person, then I'll definitely try and sway them, but if they aren't interested, I don't feel as if this is some sort of popularity contest.

P.S.: Long time reader, first post, I'm sorry if I came off a little irritated, I don't intend to sound that way. I want people to get a realistic view on the world! I do love these forums. Sorry for the long post and any typos.

P.P.S.: BoilerUP, sorry about the name similarities, I chose it before I saw your name! But man oh man, I hope we beat the Buckeyes this weekend.

 

Welcome to the forums. That's one hell of a first post lol.

 

true dat, it took me about 45 posts before I could formulate a whole sentence, let alone a whole thought. Good Job!

 

yeah that was a very accurate post.
as a former eagle pilot and a chq pilot this is my view. Eagle deffinately has the stability thing going. Nothing has really changed there in years and its not going anywhere for the forseable future. Eagle has good work rules that are both fair to the company and the employees. Eagle actually does have more types of aircraft than republic curently wich some you may want to fly and some you may not (i recomend the ATR great airplane). Eagle also lets you pick your base which, if you live in BOS DFW LGA ORD MIA SJU or LAX areas, can make your life really simple. Republic has some very good pro's too. They are GROWING. They are always adding new flying and new airplanes. They are independent and thus if one airline has a down turn they can easily move flying around to prevent massive layoffs. They have a SIGNIFICANTLY HAPPIER work group. Aside from the normal stuff people ***** about, no one is really angry at management. Their pay though not as good as eagles, is only a dollar an hour or so differnt so not a big deal and is much better than other places. Eagles negatives are well, upgrade time, the whole flow through/back mess, lack of growth, and the bitterness from the pilot group. The biggest reason people are upset all stems back to the flow through/back issues. The guys who are now finally upgrading after 8+ years as FO's were originally told it was a 18 month upgrade. Now they are finally seeing the left seat and being told by the company we cant compete with other regionals cause we pay you too much. Eagle wants to get rid of them so they can bring in younger (ie cheaper) captains and be more on par with places like RAH where after 10 years with the company, you can be the most senior check airman at the base while 10 years at eagle, you can finally hold a line in SJU. The whole mess has made many guys bitter and it really hurts the work enviornment. Republic also has negatives, though all the growth is good, what will happen in the future if they cant sustain the growth. They almost bit off more than they could chew with the continental contract but were barely able to get those crj-200's in on time to stop the bleeding. The 50 seat and smaller flying is also being scaled back. Will it all be replaced by 170's and larger? According to Bedford yes but he isnt God (yet).
I hope this helps. If I can offer any single piece of advice on picking an airline, find the one that has a base as close as possible to your favorite bar. They all have good and bad things so why go all over the place and have a bad day and be some where you dont want to be that night.

 

Eagle's flow thru/flow back will remain a mess because part of it depends on mainline guys. The generation of pilots at mainline carriers have done more to screw the next generation (us) out of jobs it's unbelievable. They basically climbed the ladder and pulled it up behind them. Notice how that agreement works great when they want to flow back...not when you want to flow up. Don't even get me started on relaxing scope.

 

What are your opinions on relaxing scope?

 

i personally will believe it when i see it but bedford does have a point with the whole scope negotiations.

 

I truly hope that APA doesnt relax scope, but I think it is inevitable whether through a tradeoff for the 30% payraise, or some arbitration ruling to change it. If this happens then the floodgates will be open for AMR to make AE(or some other regional) fly 100 seaters for them.

 

I have no factual info to back this statement. With all that has been in the news with congestion, the fact that most regionals continue to increase equipment size, and the fact that the EMB's are getting old, leads me to believe that there will be a larger aircraft for me to be CA in. Its all a guessing game anyhow. I can't predict the future but I think it is a damn good educated guess.