Planedrive

Has anyone heard more details on this?

Apokleros

I am one of those guys who delayed purposefully going over to the regionals after I reached the mins. I instructed up to 700 hours, flew a CASA 212 in Alaska and am now flying Lears and Falcons beyond 1500 hours into various kinds of airports which the airlines do not visit. All that experience will benefit me well when I head off to the regionals next April. I am neither special nor the best pilot known to man, but I was adventurous and wanted to explore all segments of the industry, or at least as much as practical. I guess that I could have gone to a regional faster and have been closer to upgrade by a year or two by now, but it would have been so much more boring, had I done it like that. There are too many great aviation jobs that are out there to be experienced. I will also not settle for less compensation since I worked my arse off to reach where I am now.

USMCmech

Agree 100%

Generally speaking, the pilots that I respect the most have the most varied background and a wide assortment of experience in all areas of this industry.

Often, worst pilots I know are the ones who have never flown outside the 121 world after they finished flight school. Many went to Gulfstream right after getting their CMEL, then moved up the ranks to RJs and eventually to the majors. Many of these clowns have a far too high opinion of themselves.


I agree that total time does not automatically equal experience. However, a lack of TT does equal a lack of experience.

FlameNSky

If airlines raised the ticket prices just $1 per hour per passenger, they could increase the Captain by $15 an hour and FO pay $25. Or they could take that dollar out of their billions of dollars of profits and they would unilaterally solve their "pilot shortage". Unfortunately even with that, it would take 5 years or more to fix the problem that they created by their decades of greed.

Or they could just merge the "regional" flying into their mainline pilot groups. The model seems to work well for JetBlue. Yeah, it would not be desirable to start out right seat on a "regional" jet but when your seniority could hold the bigger, better paying equipment, you bid it. No bonuses, no flow, no games or tricks.

seekingblue

Not to take away from what you are saying, but we get a 1 year bonus.