Eagle questions & Upgrades (I Know; Long time)
 

as a new hire headed to dallas in a few days. (I didnt get the RAH job) I'm currious what it looks like as far as upgrade time. I read on here somewhere that there was virtualy no hireing done between 01 and 04. Is this correct? On the mane APC sight the most junior T-prop captain is Nov 2000. I know upgrade time can change with the wind, but from people that are there now, how does it look? Also, I have heard that there realy isnt reserve time in ORD on the ERJ, is this correct? Finally how long is the wait for IOE on the ERJ.

thanks in advance. and please honest helpfull answers. I know most of you think I'm nuts to head to eagle right now. :) But it is what it is and I'm just looking for some honest info about internal workings of Eagle from the guys that are there.

From what I hear it's looking near a month or two of reserve on the ERJ, but that it's not brutal at all, and that they actually do a descent job of scheduling you out. IOE is in the same situation in terms of not being a long wait (it depends on what your seniority was in your class). Upgrade? Well, it's at about 7 years now, and I think that it's going to stay that way, maybe + or - one or two years.

EDIT: Of course, this is second hand information, so I could be completely wrong.

I believe the 7 years is wrong.

There is a huge "bubble" in the seniority list. So, the idea is that once the bubble hits, the 6-7 year upgrade time will probably be cut in half (if not by more).

Anyone know what Eagle's "new" Year 2 pay is on the jet since they got their 1.8% pay increase?

There are about 1200+/- first officers at eagle right now. Last quarter (3 months) there were 73 upgrades. I believe in the previous quarter there were slightly less but still better than the 15-20 per month advertised. My guess is that someone starting now will upgrade in 4-5 years (taking into account age 65).

I looked at the list and there are now only about 150 FOs hired before 2004 (none in 2002 or 2003) so it looks bad on paper but in about the next year it will drop dramatically.

Theres nothing wrong with eagle by the way it's a great place to work. I picked it because it seemed to me to be the best company to work for, not upgrade time. Also, my understanding is that some of the upgrade trouble is actually caused by too few FOs. Good luck

On another post I answered about Eagle quality of life and kept it positive. With this upgrade question that becomes a bit hard to accomplish.

Been at Eagle almost 3 1/2 years. There was virtually no hiring between 01 and 04. So you'd assume that would drop the upgrade time from the current 7-8 years down 3 years to 4-5. You'd be wrong.

The last few months have had 30 captain openings, but last month had 21. Once you add in backfills it's more like 17 total seats to bid on. Now you may think that's not bad, and it wouldn't be at a smaller company, but there's almost 3000 pilots at Eagle. It's going to take forever to move up 1500 numbers.

Arbitration and flowbacks leaving for AA add up to about 400 more captain slots. However that's assuming the arbitrator rules in our favor. AA is recalling about 30 a month. That's 3 years to get them all back and get me to a point where I could bid captain. I realize there's quite a bit of resignations so let's assume I could hold prop captain in 2 years. That's 5 1/2 years to hold Saab captain and another year to hold jet. The divesture will likely slim down Eagle and raise those times another year or two.

Long story short, if you're looking to get hired somewhere right now Eagle is a great company. Just make sure you're planning to get a little experience and travel with the great benefits on your time off before you leave for greener pastures. Waiting at Eagle for a captain seat is a sucker bet.

oh yeah, second yr pay is 26.16 for prop, 32.89 jet

just add 1.8% to the current rate.

Thanks for the reply, I would ask to be based in ORD, so that's why I asked about 2-year jet pay.....