Day in the Life of a Regional
 

If you want to read a little more about what a typical Regional pilot does beyond just the alpha-numerics associated with the print out schedule, here is a link to Jetcareers.com. Might find it interesting and informative.

http://www.jetcareers.com/content/view/37/60/

Hope this is of help.
Jess

I'm an fo, been here about 1 year. I bid about halfway up the FO list in domicile (not PHL based...).

As boilerup said, you can pretty much get anything you want (sans reserve) if you live in base. Right now, if you bid for commutability, your lines WILL suck. In fact, if you are low on the todem poll your lines will suck no matter if you are a commuter or live in base, but things get better with time.

He was on reserve 1 month (according to his post). The people that were hired just 1-2 months after him are STILL ON RESERVE. This shows you how important timing is. He was hired in the middle of a great hiring spree (I was hired at the beginning of it, it started around this time last year, and I sat 4 months on reserve, but did enjoy a nice 5-week long paid vacation prior to OE...).

Don't expect what happened to him or I. Seriously :).

As for what I get for a line, I have bills to pay so I bid for lines that are 90+ hours (unless I need specific days off) with a TAFB of at least 300 hrs, which gives me $450 in per diem per month and around 13-14 days off per month and a credit of around 95-100 hours at the end of the month. I live in base, so this allows me to do this. If I was a commuter my lines would credit significantly less. For instance, last month I had 16 days off and credited 90 hours. It was a good line.

On second year pay, excluding per diem, I expect to gross around $3100-$3300/month. Per diem would be another ~$450 (tax free) or so per month, but I'm finding I'm starting to spend it a bit more on trips now that I'm on second year pay :).

I'm in the Air Force with about 2000 hours and might be getting out in a year. I live in Atlanta and one option is to work for ExpressJet since it's based out of there.

Lots of good information in this post! Even though this thread is several years old, I was just wondering if this is still accurate for ExpressJet??

Also, when it comes to bidding on a schedule, what are your choices when you first get hired as a FO? My goal would be to fly as much as possible and build up hours fast, and then hopefully work my way to the majors since I already have 2000 hours.

Lastly, do you ever get weekends off in the Regionals as a new guy?

Don't plan on weekends off at any airline as a "new guy."

You will be on reserve for a while when you first start, so you can not control how much you fly. Once you hold a schedule, you can load up and fly as much as the regs allow. Forget about weekends off for a while, but as a consolation, weekend trips are a little easier with respect to dealing with delays and such. Do not commute to a different base to hold a schedule faster. You will be sorry.

This thread was dead for almost 10 years. Some one had too much time on their hands.

If it is relevant to the info he needs, why start a new one?

Well to answer his question, expressjet is a sinking ship, you'd be foolish to go there now a days. One of those companies that was doing well for a while and just it seemed overnight crapped the bed.

Darn it FlyerJosh, there you go bringing back the good memories from Blue Ridge!