They are also losing a third of their planes...

hmm, where is your math coming from?

Was wondering that to. Last time I checked Eagles fleet of 135s and ATRs wasn't a 1/3rd of their fleet. Maybe he knows something others don't.

Go with EAGLE!! I believe the future of AE is less cloudy than that of AWAC...my gut opinion and feeling is the owners of AWAC will close the doors come 2015 or shortly thereafter...they've had a great run of making a ton of cash and now the regional industry is a much different place than when they began their journey.

1st 5 years you pay a small fee for a seat in back (cockpit jumpseat is free), yes it's stupid.. but it isn't that much really anyway, $7-15 for coach usually, depending on distance. It's easily avoidable anyway, just jumpseat on everyone else for free, that's what I did my first 5 years, that or try and get the agent to list you for the cockpit to avoid the fee. After 5 yrs domestic coach is free for you and your family or travel partner.

The upside is we probably have the best mainline travel agreement of any regional. Priority is based on check in time, so we can go ahead of mainline AA on their own planes if we check in first for everything but the cockpit jumpseat.

And we, along with our spouse, kids or travel partner each get 4 D1 passes a year for use on AA or Eagle. This pass basically trumps everyone and puts your priority at the top of the standby list, for use if you really need to get somewhere. It won't put you above revenue pax or AMR business travel, but it will put you above all the other standbys which really comes in handy sometimes, especially international, if you are looking at getting stranded due to a crazy long standby list.

How exactly do you pay for that? Assuming you just walk up to the gate agent and list for the jumpseat... Do you pay the gate agent? I thought the fee was only for listing standby?

If you ride on Eagle or AA (not in the cockpit jump) they will automatically pull the amount out of your paycheck at the end of the month if you are less than 5 years. You don't physically pay them. There is no fee for listing, only if you actually use the seat.

The bottom of your pay statement will have "non rev charges" and an amount listed. Annoying as it is, it's pretty insignificant. It's like taking the sure thing on AA to commute for 10 bucks, or go standby to ride Skywest or United or whatever for free.. but at higher risk of not getting a seat.

I always just tried to ride Delta/United to work and avoided the stupid fee all together most of the time.

Go with Eagle. Nice $5,000 signing bonus, guys starting to flow to AA within the next couple of months, large airplanes (CRJ900 more than likely) expected to begin arriving 3rd quarter of 2014, in-house top notch training. Like people said before, there is uncertainty out there, but hey, it's the airlines...

I will agree with this. I'm pretty sure we have the best training facilities of any regional by far. We are in the same facility with AA, and it is top notch.. HUGE facility (too big actually, kinda sucks walking all over that place if you have a kit bag with no wheels). Huge indoor pool for water training, surrounded by all the different AA/Eagle ACTUAL aircraft fuselages inside for training.. Rows of multi million dollar in house sims, truly impressive to see them all in motion.. (some sim time is outsourced to flight safety down the road, rarely to Flight Safety Houston, I almost always have had all sim time in house, have been to DFW flight safety only a couple times in many training cycles, which is actually nice anyway because they have free food, sandwiches or Pizza at lunch most of the time) You will learn quickly, if you are not already a regional pilot that free food for airline pilots is a big deal. We live for that crap. haha.. Our Classrooms are nice too..

Not that this stuff is vital, but nice to have.. especially since you spend a lot of time there every year. MONTHS during aircraft transitions or for new hires.. so it's worth thinking about it..

We have a Nice cafeteria with a grill and some good food, across the street in the huge flight attendant training center there is an even better cafeteria with many options, Mexican, deli, Italian, soup bar, sandwiches, grill.. etc.. there is even a nice AA flight museum here in the training center with a DC-3 inside worth checking out..

Training center is one thing I have never complained about here at Eagle.. except for the huge walking distances in the building, lol. It feels like you are training in a world class, Major airline training center.. because you are. You are not in some rented out craphole space or an annexed trailer classroom like some other places.. (not saying any names)

We get 15 minute breaks every hour and an hour for lunch (in training)

Training center is also only minutes away from DFW by shuttle, very convenient for getting home Friday after class gets out, or traveling to/from.

Agreed. Top notch CK's like MA and CW.