A lot of people chased the 2 year upgrade a few years back and ended up stuck or furloughed from places like TSA, PSA, and Republic. Go for the airline you can stick around for and be relatively happy with.

Republic isn't the worst place to be but it's not the best, either. I don't work for SkyWest, so I can't tell you what life is like there...but I would think commuting out of LAX makes this a win for SkyWest.

Good luck!

Seems like Skywest would be better. More West Coast bases and a shorter commute to ORD or MSP rather then NYC.

Do yourself a favor and go to Skywest. I am working within the Quadra-angle of evil and it aint pretty to commute let alone from the west cost. A guy that was in my crashpad in CMH (which is a real possibility for you) commuted from SEA and even if he got 3 days off in a row he spent 2 days just commuting on his days off just to get to and from work. Commutable lines are barely existant there too. I would go to Skywest on the Brasilia and upgrade quickly. Even if you were based in FAT you could drive the grapevine from LA just as long as it would take you to commute across country.

You live in LA and you're actually having trouble deciding...

Republic is leveraged 1:1. One misstep and they are very close to not making payments to someone. There is also a messy integration going on. Their FO payscale is a joke. If you get stuck in the right seat for some reason the pay scale stops at year 3? Or 4? can't remember. But the E170 has full size overhead bins so it minimizes the whole RJ feel.

SkyWest has more money in the bank than most majors. They have posted a profit in almost all quarters since the early 1990's. You live in LA. They have West in their name. SkyWest has NEVER furloughed. The pilots all got together and flew reduced schedules, took voluntary leaves and the company was ok with being fat for about a year to avoid any pilot layoffs.

Both groups are made up of 99% solid pilots. Each has a few tools, but almost all of us would have gone with the other carrier if offered a job there initially.

been at Republic for 6 years,

GO TO SKYWEST!

upgrade is non existent here right now we have lots of FO's topped out at $36.62 and hour at year 4, there is virtually no chance of having any sense of a life commuting from LA to any base Shuttle has.

Good Luck

Before I even scrolled down I was thinking that "Saluki" needs to come in here with a good image!

If its between the E170 and CRJ, haven't I heard of some majors not counting "Little" RJs for time? For instance, I thought I heard of one major who scoffed at ERJ time because it "didn't have leading edge devices." Seems like the E170 is a bit more what they are looking for if you are trying to get to majors some day (not trying to troll fyi, just repeating what I've heard).

The only place I have heard of scoffing at "little RJ's" was Emriates because of their minimum weight requirements that a CRJ2 or E145 don't meet.
The only US operator that I have heard any biases about is Jet Blue unofficially requires at least some jet and EFIS time. So 10000 hours all in a turboprop, no thanks. 9000 Tprop PIC and 1000 SIC in a CRJ200, welcome aboard.

Haven't heard the scoff thing. SWA, UsAir, UniCAL, DAL, & JB all hire E145/CRJ200 drivers. Not trying to flame ya, just saying I know plenty of 50 seat drivers who've been hired by Majors including myself.

It’s been a long time since I’ve read a more untrue statement. We’d had E120 pilots (TurboProp, 26,433 lbs) who have “never” flown RJ’s get jobs with just about everyone. Several are headed to FedEx at this moment with others either in class or on line with JetBlue, Virgin America, Delta (last fall), Spirit, AirTran, Atlas, Southwest and others.

Here’s a question for you, when did the E170 come on-line and before then how did any regional pilot ever get hired?

The majority of our (SkyWest) domiciles are in the west. Yes you won't get them right away but we did have a few who were hired in the last 2-3 month get FAT RJ FO. Even if you end up in MSP, ORD or IAH sooner or later you'll get back out west. The shortest upgrade time we have now is the E120 at about 4.5 years but as attrition and hiring pick up that time will fall. If you accept the E120 for upgrade you'll end up on the west coast someplace and might even get LAX.

In short when you take into account pay, work rules, domiciles, culture and Mgt I’d choose SkyWest. Plus there's no way I'd touch the debacle over at RAH, IMO only US Airways has a more unfavorable labor dispute.