Let 'em dog us. While they drop to their knees for every major airline out there, taking whatever they can get, paying their pilots peanuts we can fly airplanes with OUR name on the side of em. The only airplanes CHQ has with their name on it are those uglyass white tails they have floating around. That must be why they hate us so much:D

Curiosity overwhelms me, so what in the world would make you think this? In the last three years it seems like anything but growth/good news for Comair.

The regionals that seem to be at the top right now will probably seem like they are near the middle or bottom in 5 to 10 years. There is constant reshuffling with the regionals. Its just the way the industry works. The majors change who they contract with and at what level they contract with them every so often.

In time some of the ones that everyone seems to look at as top shelf may be down near the bottom of the list or gone altogether.

Though it it may be tough to get below the level of Mesa. They have and will always be at the bottom of the list.

Been at Lakes 2.5 years. I have 2 type ratings and 1000 turbine pic. I start class at a major in november. All my internal recs came from ex-Lakers. I couldnt've asked for a BETTER opportunity.

Congrats on your upcoming opportunity...but I have to seriously ask:

How did you financially afford to be at Lakes for 2.5 years, even with a fast upgrade? I don't have any debt outside of $50k in student loans and I simply couldn't work there without going into tens of thousands in debt...even living a frugal college lifestyle.

I lived with my aunt and uncle as an FO for 5 months. Then I held a line 90+ credit hours and rented an apartment with a roommate for the next 7 months. Then I upgraded. As a line holding 2nd year captain at lakes, you are going to bring home about the same as a 2nd yr fo at an rj job. Recently I have been doing 120 credit hours per month on the brasilia and bringing home over 3K per month. I am not gonna lie... it has been a financial struggle but it was definately worth it.

And you are going to a Major where seniority is EVERYTHING. Good job. People don't realize what you need to do in this industry. Get the quals for the major and get out ASAP. Who cares if you make one or two dollars per hour more here or there. Fly anything and get to a major to start your career. When I started flying a turboprops, I went to one of the worst regionals out there making $12/hour as an FO and then $26/hour as a Captain (ATR). Curious, which regional you ask? Continental Express! Sure, they are a different company now (your welcome, XJT pilots). I got stuck there longer than I wanted (flow through and 9/11), but now I go to upgrade at CAL in December. I recently flew with an EX-B1900 guy doing his IOE on a B767-400. He had no RJ time; he had PIC time. You make fun of Gulfstream guys, but some of them work at majors now. They didn't cross any picket line to get there.

Get the time for the majors and network, nothing else matters.

Good luck to you all. :)

At Least ExpressJet is one of the few regionals that could turn into a big airline. What other regional besides MESA started it's own Branded flying. If it goes well for us we have nothing holding us back from getting larger planes. The majors will always prevent the regionals from using larger planes because of scope. Plus by being dropped from Continental, it opened us up to Delta flying and the ability to control our own future. Plus our bases aren't restricted to EWR, CLE, and IAH - yuck.

Almost all regional's began by doing their own branded flying and moved away since it doesn't work any more. I take my hat off to Indy Air for trying, and acknowledge XJT's model is a little different, but it won't work unless the pax can flow through a network. Good luck, but I'd bet five years from now all XJT's planes have someone else's name on the side.

strange, the airline you were dropped for already had 4 codeshares that it was flying under, and had a bunch of bases all ready.