ryane946

I wanted to bring some attention to the current state of the regional airline industry. When you look at an airlines pay scale, we tend to look at the maximum pay amount for the largest jet. At FedEx, its $225 for 15 year Widebody capt. There is a big problem doing this. We ignore all the intermediate steps. At a regional, we will more than likely spend about 3 years as FO. So the first things we should look at is 1st,2nd,3rd year FO pay. When I was researching regionals, I could not believe the variations in FO pay. I would always look at 5th year captain pay for comparison purpouses. And more or less, they were pretty similar. But FO pay could vary by over $10 an hour. So I thought I would bring it to your attention. See below.

Most regionals, 1st,2nd,3rd year FO pay

Eagle 24,32,34 (Tjet)
ASA 19,34,35 (50 seat)
Comair 24,39,40 (50 seat)
Express Jet 23,34,36 (Tjet)
Mesa 21,28,31 (Tjet)
Skywest 19,35,36 (Tjet)
Air Wisconsin 24,35,37 (50 seat)
Republic (Chataqua, Shuttle America) 23,30,35 (Tjet)
GoJet 23,25,34 (70 seat )
Mesaba 24,28,31 (all FO)
Pinnacle 21,24,30 (50 seat)
Trans States 22,25,32 (50 seat)

I want to draw your eyes to GoJet, Pinnacle, and Trans States!! Typically everyone complains about 1st year FO pay. How many people have complained about $19 an hour at Skywest? But there is a huge improvement in 2nd year pay. While Pinnacle starts out at $21 an hour, 2nd year pay only goes to $24!!!! Same idea with Trans States. I was mad about GoJets, but I think everyone should see their 2nd year FO pay. Now I truly believe they are @$$holes for taking a job at GoJet!

Most regionals, 5th year Captain pay

Eagle $67 (50 seat)
ASA $62 (50 seat)
Comair $71 (50 seat)
Express Jet $68 (50 seat (and less))
Mesa $59 (50 seat)
Skywest $63 (50 seat)
Air Wisconsin $65 (50 seat)
Republic $66 (50 seat)
GoJet $64 (70 seat)
Mesaba $62 (50 seat, but they only have 1), $50 for 5th year Capt on S340
Pinnacle $62 (50 seat)
Trans States $62 (50 seat)


Be sure to consider 1st, but especially 2nd year FO pay when considering a company. A quick comparison of two regionals with similar upgrade times, ASA and Pinnacle, would show a 1st year FO makes $19 at ASA and $21 at pinnacle, and 5th year captain makes $62 at both.
But the key here is at year 2 and 3. A pilot would make $34 and $35 an hour at ASA for years 2 and 3, while another pilot would only make $24 and $30 at Pinnacle. That is a difference of approximately $15,000 over 2 years. And most people generally do not look at these numbers (as far as I can tell).


The purpouse of this thread is two fold. (Not to bash any pilot groups, except GoJet of course!!!)

LAfrequentflyer

Comair is the place to be...

-LAFF

groovinaviator

Thanks for a worthwhile consolidation and comparison of info. If there were a way to show rigs and work rules within your breakdown that would be awesome. A lot of pilots get caught up on negotiating that extra dollar, but i'm sure management is happy to give the extra dollar if they can slash your rigs. WORK RULES WORK RULES WORK RULES... when negotiaions come up don't give them up like we did here at AWAC a few years ago... we'll never get them back.

RightSeatDude

Upgrade time is also an issue. Sure, American Eagle has great 5-year captain pay. Problem is, the upgrade is 6-7 years.

You can upgrade in 2-3 at some of the airlines with the lower pay scales. So who's better off? The smart guy at Eagle who's got a 10-year sentence to move on to a major, or the dumb guy that took the lower pay scale, upgraded faster, got his 1000 PIC turbine faster and moved on faster?

As for ComAir, yeah, great pay scale. Too bad they're about to go under. So is going there a wise move? In most cases, probably not.

BoilerUP

What work rules were given up by ZW? Min day went from 3.5 to 3.0, trip rig went from 3.5:1 to 4.0:1, introduction of NOM/NRT parings (which are very limited), CDO pay is now 5:00 instead of 7:00. I'm sure I'm missing another item or two, but those changes are the major ones.

In case you haven't noticed, our (concessionary) work rules and retirement are waaaaay better than most legacies and every single regional with the possible exception of Expressjet...plus we have what amounts to a 3% B fund, which is almost unheard of in the regional industry.

BoilerUP

And ryane, why do you keep posting this sophomore-level analysis of the airline industry? I'm having a hard time understanding what your point to all this is...

groovinaviator

I agree that we still have a very good contract. All the concessions were before my time, i was just reporting on what i was told. I suppose I should research a little more before I just trust my sources. Thanks for the heads up.

jdr7225

We at Pinnacle realize this...Which is why we have been trying to get a better contract for the last 2 years.

BoilerUP

I didn't mean to come off harshly, its just that while work rules were given up during the "con-cession", much more hourly pay was sacrificed to keep the work rules industry-leading.

While the arbitrator giving us the old contract plus full retro would be ideal, I'd be happy with only getting the work rules back. That'd put more cash into everybody's pocket and would make most schedules infinately better with more days off, more commutability, and more efficent utilization.

supersix-4

Where the payscales on this site show 2nd 3rd or 4th yr and so on capt. pay, Do they mean years as capt or years w/company?