If you don't see the difference between trying to get hired at Delta vs getting hired at Spirit then you are just kidding yourself. You can get hired at the airlines you listed as an FO at any regional you think of. There are pilots at Spirit actively applying to Delta... that should tell you something. Go to a job fair and watch the lines for the different majors. You are going to see people congregate on the larger, more stable airlines. Look at the hours of those who got hired at those airlines. If you want any of the airlines you listed then go right ahead but those are risky airlines.

I really like Alaskan but you still aren't getting hired there unless you know someone or have a ton of time. If everyone is getting hired with the magic 1000TPIC then why are there so many guys stuck at different regionals twiddling their thumbs. When Delta, United, American, etc start hiring... the competitive minimums will be pretty high. Do you want to rack up 7000 hours scraping by living in a rental apartment or do you want to have a life and be able to go on vacation. Thats the difference between great lakes and a larger regional. Neither is pretty but there is a better QOL at one.

There are no shortcuts unless you are exceptionally lucky. You are gambling that you wont be stuck at great lakes, that they stay in business, and that nothing happens to you that ruins your chance at a major. The 3 that went to Alaskan were the exception and not the rule.

They did that in the past because everyone was hiring and the competitive mins were relatively low ... they didn;t want to hire the more experienced guy because he would jump ship to the better airline asap. In the next wave when career airlines start hiring in large numbers; I don't think they will be worried about people jumping ship because of the relatively quick movement at those airlines and the fact that there is a HUGE pool of guys with 10000 plus hours with near perfect records. The competitive minimums will be quite high and 5000 Tsic or 1000 pic isn;t going to get you the job at any highly competitive airline unless you are extremely lucky.

I am not talking down to people btw. I am in the same boat and will be one of the guys well under the competitive minimums for where i want to go. I was more trying to explain to that poster why i think ****ing away your early 20's is a huge mistake. He could be somewhat happy while he builds his time but he is instead under the impression that he will be out the door at 1000 TPIC.

It's not an accurate comparison because most pilots at GLA are on duty for more than 40 hours per week. So the pay is actually substantially lower than minimum wage. I never understood how any arbitrator could have allowed a contract with pay that low, but since the pilots had to sign it, I guess that makes it legal. I'm still trying to decide whether TSA or GLA was a worse place to work.

As I've been reading this forum, I must say it strikes me as quite amazing the number of people who feel that it's the fault of Lakes pilots that pay in the industry is low. I'd like to try and resolve this with a little bit of business knowledge. Pay, in any business, is largely determined by the revenue able to supply it. If a business has a lot of money coming in, they are able to pay more (ie; oil companies are known to pay their execs well) and if a business has a low revenue and low profit margin the employee seems to be paid less (ie; flipping $1 double cheeseburgers seems to pay closer to minimum wage than an oil exec.). Now in this forum there has been some recollection of the days when mainline captains and fo's were paid well into the 6 figures, but what was flying like back then? A high profit luxury item. Looking at airlines today, they have shifted their model from a high profit luxury expense to a low profit margin ticket.

All I am saying is as passengers have demanded lower fares, management has had to reduce ticket prices to stay competitive. The real people responsible for all of our fairly low pay is not sitting in a lakes cockpit or in an upper level management position; they are all sitting behind you. They scour the Internet looking for a low fare, then still gripe about having to pay that for the flight. Then management, who is also usually blamed for our low pay, has to at least try to break even. As such, when they reduce fares and the profit margin goes negative, the company will then do what it takes to reduce costs to return to the black (didn't AMR lose almost a billion dollars 4th quarter last year? How would you turn that ship around?). As with any business, labor is the most expensive. Therefore, it is usually the first targeted.

So why then are Lakes pilots paid the least? Well our competition certainly isn't mainline carriers, but we run routes from out stations to hubs that people could drive if they felt that the ticket price was too much. So to keep people in the airplane, the fare has to be set low enough so that the person would rather fly with us then drive to the hub and fly out of there. That is what keeps ticket prices down and in turn that is what keeps pay down.

Also, everyone here seems to agree that regionals are a bottom feed to a major. And all this income comparison goes so far, but look at other industries. Don't most starting doctors start with year long unpaid internships? Followed by many years as an aid or assistant for wages similar to ours. Also, the student debt for a doctor is probably going to be much higher than ours. Same with lawyers, unpaid internships, then work under a big name lawyer in town for wages equally as small with debt usually well into the 6 figures. Being a pilot and making 20, 30, 40 some odd thousand a year isn't like we're underpaid. We are after all in the same company as doctors and lawyers.

Then lastly, all this comparison about pay, qol, upgrade times, getting hired at a major, etc. What kind of tit for tat game is this? We're all working toward the same things and shouldn't we all really be viewing ourselves as in this together? I mean, we all want a job at a major where our pay is better and our schedules are more nice to us, yet we're here trying to defend the job that we have to get us to our dream job? Our employment here at a regional (just like any employment I suppose) is a use-use relationship. 16 bucks an hour or 30 bucks are all nothing compared to what our top salary could be (250,000?). We're all scraping the bottom and trying to point fingers and pretend that we're less at the bottom of the pit than others? Guys, we're in this together and I wish everyone the best of success where ever it is that you go. We all want to move on, and I wish that we all do.

Then why should major airlines pay more than $40K a year for their captains?

There are many airlines today that are selectively hiring people with less than 6k hours for a reason and ignoring the large pool of 10k hour pilots, they also tend to be the top paying airlines in the industry right now.

Also, please learn some proper grammar, capitalization, and punctuation.

Getting that 1000TPIC after 2-3 years at lakes and then going to Jet Blue, Virgin, Spirit, Frontier, etc for another year or two will get someone's foot in the door at a major much faster than going to SKW for 5 years and sitting in the right seat for all of it. Probably will result in better paychecks, work rules, and QOL too. ;)


Gotta have some sort of carrot to keep the cheap labor rolling in at the bottom.

Not sure Lakes is the company you need to be worried about. Mainline didn't used-ta fly a 737 into Worland, WY.

Is Great Lakes still offering interviews/hiring people?

What's the hire date of the most junior captain?

Any I think they are still hiring/short on pilots...

I do not know their future interview plans, but I do know that pilots were interviewed today 6/6