Great Lakes or American Eagle
 

So lets say you have a friend who has a class date for American Eagle as well as for Great Lakes and an Interview with Colgan. Should he interview with Colgan? Should he take American Eagle and fly a Jet, sit on reserve for a while and hope to upgrade in the next 5 years? Get on with Great Lakes and probably upgrade in a year? Goal is to move on to the majors... help a friend out!!!

Where do you live? How will the commute go? Will you get ****ed if you go to Eagle and see friends at Great Lakes or Colgan upgrade years before you do? Nobody knows how long the upgrade will be at Eagle/Lakes/Colgan if you are hired today, so its a crapshoot in the end.

Don't pick an airline based on Bases or Upgrade time! They come and go and can change on a daily basis.

Look at the contracts, workrules, pay, figure out QOL and also ask yourself this question. Could you see yourself staying at airline X for the rest of your career, because you never know!

Great Lakes
 

Does anyone know how senior the MKE base is for GLA? Or what the typical lines out of MKE are like, because don't they only fly to 2 or 3 destinations from there?

Go where ever you can be home based and pay your bills. Don't go to Lakes if you can't live off of 14k first year. Eagle is the best of the 3, but upgrade will be longer.

longer upgrades at eagle, maybe? GLA crews are great from what I hear but 14k for pay is difficult. not impossible to get by with that pay but difficult.

If her choice is Eagle, Great Lakes, or Colgan, do Colgan hands down! One thing is for sure at Eagle: long upgrades. Their most recent vacancy went to a 09/2004 hire, so they are "down" to a 6 year upgrade. Meanwhile at Colgan, the latest preliminary award shows a Saab Captain award of a 2010 hire! Add the fact Colgan is getting multiple Q400s from now until April 2011, your friend WILL upgrade at Colgan in less than a year, provided he/she has the time.

Keep chasing the upgrade! Who cares about pay, workrules, etc., right?

Before you start bragging about short upgrades, hiring and new aircraft at Colgan, you should be asking yourself why it's happening at Colgan!

That depends. What are you looking for at a regional? Personally, I'm not looking at a regional as my final career stop. So I want a regional that is at least somewhat decent with good movement, so I can move on to where I really want to be: major/legacy. That's why I chose Pinnacle, along with 95% of other pilots who came to Pinnacle. Now no one saw the financial meltdown coming of 2007-2010 (except the corrupt financial/government officials, another story for another thread). So, we're all stuck now until the hiring picks up again. But I'll be honest. I'd much rather be a Colgan CA on the Q400 in EWR than a Eagle FO in DFW. But that's just me... :)

just wonderin how long did it take for ya to hear back from Lakes? I applied on 11/2 and havent heard anything yet...