Anybody know who currently has the lowest upgrade times? Is anybody at the regionals upgrading to the left seat within a year or two? Second question: how is it decided what a/c you will go to. Is RJ preference given to those with previous jet/glass cockpit/fms time? Thanks.

 

I can tell you CHQ is at 2 years. I think it will drop over the next 6 to 8 months to a year and a half. That is do the growth with the Continental flying. You see Tanker, that is a tough question to answer. The length of upgrade time could change quickly.

A/C is decided on availability. What does your senority get you?

 

Camille at SkyWest just posted a company email stating "if new hires meet capt min's, the upgrade will be very quick"..I think that mean they are hiring into the left seat for the Bro.

 

Hey CHQ & SKW are both great, well ok airlines (CHQ) but don't ,make your decisions based on upgrade time. Upgarde time for you will be when you upgrade trying to determine that is like trying to figure out whos going to win the world series, sure the Yankees seemed like a 777, but they ended up looking like that beaten down old old USAIR painted Beech 1900 that I used to see at PIT that was flown by MESA, pure garbage! When you upgrade thats when you can figure out what YOUR upgrade time is going to be!

 

The lowest upgrade time today is not going to be the upgrade time in one, two, or three years.

Past performance is not indicative of future results.

 

My buds at SkyWest upgraded on the prop at a little over a year. But as others have said, who knows how long that will last. It looks good, but you never know.

 

true, but i think you can say with certainty that some upgrade times arent gonna change anytime soon. classic example would be Eagle with roughly 500 flowbacks from AA. its going to take a long time for them to finish recalling, and then with all those senior FO's upgrading to CA after them, its still gonna take a LOOOONG time.

SKW will continue to have decent upgrade times as long as they keep losing 20 CA's a month to the majors

MESA will have good upgrade times because all their FO's are jumping ship

 

Whoever gets the next big contract.

 

ghilis is dead on. while nothing is ever certain, there are some things that are likely. SKW is continually growing. Poor eagle is not. If I were going to a regional with upgrade in mind, I would not go to eagle.

 

Sky West may be close to upgrading off the street, but if you could go to Go Jets and upgrade in 6 months, does it mean that you should? If you're flying a jet for the first time and "legally" qualify for upgrade, should you? After 6 months or a year on an airplane, does that mean that you are ready to sign the release and take COMPLETE responsibility for that airplane and the 53 (or more) people that aere on board that airplane? Have you seen all 4 seasons and would you know what to expect. Say you got on the line in March, and had the opportunity to upgrade in November. Would you feel comfortable deicing having never done it? What about hold over times? Have you experienced an emergency yet? In the first year, you should be focused on becoming a good first officer and learning the airplane. Your second year, you need to be working on your decision making that will be needed once you upgrade.

My point is, don't make your decision on where to go based on upgrade times. Just because you might be able to upgrade fast, doesn't mean that you should go there just because of that....