Upgrade Time At Regionals
 

Does anyone know what regionals have the quickest upgrade times? Any companies hire CAPT's off the street?

I'll take a stab at this one... American Eagle came to my corner of the world recently and before I asked, I was told about 8 years!!! After I picked myself up off the floor, I slipped out the door unnoticed. They are have a flowback, no flow thru to AA.:cool:

The thing I will say about AE is that they do have a history of long upgrade times but with the amount of people they are hiring I would have to believe this will have to go down.

Also a lot of times the airlines with highest upgrade times are usually the airilnes people want to fly for, take for example horizon they have high upgrade times but that is because it is one of the few regionals people want to make careers at, and it is the highest paid regional.

you need to look at the whole company not just upgrade times

plus there are very few majors hiring so you get a quick upgrade and then you have no where to go. so look at the whole picture not just upgrade time

Hiring people at the bottom doesn't mean that upgrade time shortens. Only two things can shorten upgrades: new airplanes and captains leaving. If anything, the hiring they are doing will lengthen upgrades because you are putting more people between you and the seniority to upgrade. I agree you need to look at more than upgrades because the company that upgrades you in 2 years now might have an 8 year upgrade time a year from now. Regionals are not exactly stable. You just have to take a stab and stick it out.

I upgraded Capt. of a jet in 8 months.

However that was at Independence Air.

My point is this young jedi, what upgrade time is does not matter. Say someone tells you that its 8 months, well 8 months in the airline industry is like dog years. For example, go to MSN money and look at a graph of JetBlue stock price for the past 3 months. It has gone straight down in only 3 months!

http://data.moneycentral.msn.com/scr...2&C5=3&C6=2006

Time is very short and costs have a dramatic impact on the airlines. This being said, with an 8 month upgrade the only people that will upgrade in 8 months are those who were hired 8 months ago. 8 months from now, upgrade is anybodies guess. You can never count on upgrades, go to a place that if you get stuck in the right seat its not that bad.

If you want more advise PM me, and good luck.

Re: Independence/ACA/AcJet...

There were tons of guys hired in/around 2000 who left jobs at other airlines because they heard upgrade into a jet at ACA/ACJet was less than 1 year.

Most of those guys never upgraded at all! The company started to shrink and ultimately all were furloughed.

As Indyair Guy implies, past performance is no guarantee of future results.

EDPM

Don't pick a company based on upgrade time. Choose one that is stable and will be around for along time.

What does everyone think about Horizon. I know the upgrade is something like 6 years, but their wages are liveable at the bottom of their payscale.

- Do pilots like working there?
- Are they treated well?
- Good work rules?
- Good management?

Do you think Alaska will start using Horizon's RJ's anytime in the future. As far as I know, only Frontier uses them.

From what I've heard, the guys really enjoyed working there. Had two in my indoc class, but that was awhile ago.

Yea one thing about long upgrades is that means usally the job is a livable one. You hear everyone complain about eagle yet no one leaves. crappy jobs have the realivly quicker upgrades becasue no one wants to work there they just want to build time and leave.