Slice,

Excellent post. .

If while flying at Brand X you pick up a violation, incident or accident, your chances for employment at Brand ABC become slimmer.

Be careful if you work at Brand X.

FF

 

I'm with most other people - stick it out at Mesa, get the TPIC and get the hell out.

But...... how do you know what the industry will be like in 2 years time? It may all come to a grinding halt, if we really do hit a recession, God forbid there's another terrorist incident or if age 65 slams the brakes on at the majors or...., or...... So then you could end up with 1,000 TPIC and no exit strategy from Mesa and stuck there hating life.

But in theory at least, with 1,000 TPIC at least you have options.

Good luck with the decision.

 

Thats the key. With 1000 TPIC you have far more options than another 1500-2000 hours of SIC.

 

Mesa sucks... but you should stay.

 

hmmmmm, have you thought about the possibility of not getting on at that great major as soon as you hit 1000 TPIC? What happens if hiring slows waaaaay down, which historically suggests it will, and that "stick it out for 2 years and bail into your glorious dream job" idea turns into "stuck in hell indefinatly"? Yes, all regionals are "stuck in hell" but a home based, better contract and QoF hell seems better than mesa. When planning for the future you should hope and and dream for the best but expect the worst (especially in this industry)

 

What if he dies next week? It won't matter. Fact(with few exceptions) 2 years from now, if the majors are hiring you won't qualify due to lack of PIC. The PIC will open up opportunities at other regionals, Netjets, Flexjet, corporate, plus every major out there. If you're going by the law of percentages, get the left seat time. Could this all change tomorrow? Of course. But even in crappy times it's been a pretty sold requirement across the board. In fact, I wouldn't plan on leaving at 1000 TPIC. Maybe Atlas, Gemini, Emirates, etc., will be in the cards. FO time after a certain point is worthless. If you're ready for upgrade at Mesa, you've pretty much hit that point.

 

personally think that if the industry does take a dump, or if this "recession" takes off and goes deeper, that yes, things will slow down. If the majors stop hiring, then movement will slow across the board, from bad regional to good regional, there won't be to many FO's leaving for Continental, nor many Captains leaving for Southwest, and upgrades may slow to a halt, even at any of our regionals (good ones, or bad ones) and we're all "stuck". So then, the options would be.

A. Stuck at Good regional as an FO, no upgrade in site, logging tons of SIC time for the foreseeable future. You're only hope is either find a company that IS hiring and doesn't require PIC (and the other applicants don't have that TPIC as well) or, that the industry recovers and you can move onto the left seat and finally start building PIC time.

B. Take the upgrade and stick it out at the bad company. You're stuck there when the economy is in the dump and have no clear view of a place to go when you leave. You're logging tons of TPIC time, and when the industry finally does come back to life, you have the option of being in that first wave of guys to leave (such as last year in the regionals).

Based on my thoughts, if you got stuck just several people prior to upgrade at RAH, you still might reach your dream job 1.5-2 years prior than you would have if you stuck it out at mesa....But this is all coming from a guy who's "stuck" it out at Trans States....good luck.

 

Upgrade, if its that bad, leave in 1.5 years when you have the 1,000TPIC......

 

haha thats funny, true too

 

Well, for a variety of reasons I have made my decision to stay at Mesa and take the upgrade that should be coming my way in the next 3 months or so.

Thanks for all of the input. Know that there are a lot of us that are really trying to make things better here. From what little ALPA and the company tells us, there is some progress being made towards a new contract.