Regional pilot development program
 

I am a newly minted CFI working at a flight school in the Northwest. Just recently, Horizon set up a recruiting event at my school announcing their brand new "pilot development program." I interviewed for the program and was accepted with the following conditions. I will receive a $7500 signing bonus now and as soon as I reach 1500 hrs I will immediately start working for Horizon with a 2 year obligation. If I am still 18-24 months away from reaching ATP minimums, do you think this is a good thing? I don't feel like I know nearly enough about how things work to make a good decision so I appreciate any advice!

I think that would be a terrible idea. If you still have 18-24 months of instructing, who knows what 18-24 months is going to do to this industry. The last thing you want is to be tied to Horizon and there be a 10X better deal for you to take with a different regional when you have your time.

If I were you I would just focus on getting my time and keeping up with the industry, but don't even think about committing yourself down to 1 regional yet. When you are about 6 months from getting your time, that is when I would be seriously considering which regional you would want to go to.

Not a good deal. $7500 to give away all your options no bueno.

Terrible deal. Get your hours first. Then get that or a better offer without the 2 year commitment.
In today's industry I wouldn't commit to anywhere for 2 years.
With where you are for hours, it's way too soon for you to choose an airline. Things in this business change overnight.

If you are a newly minted CFI I would suggest you do what ever you can to move from a school that only offer 50-60 hours per month. There are several schools that offer 80-100 hours per month.

Then again you might now be mobile.

If you did sign the $7500 now because you absolutely needed the money to finish school, you could always go somewhere else later that was offering more money and pay back the $7500 with the larger bonus checks that are being paid out elsewhere. AA wholly owned are paying $20k, so you could pay back the $7500 with that. But, you would burn a bridge before you ever really got in the industry. It is also ethically wrong.

Pedro is right - you can get 80-100 hours a month and get in the game a lot faster.

Just curious, any examples?

Sounds like you might be at HIO. I suggest do not take the money. Instruct until you've got 500 hours TT then try hard to get a job with a Pictometry vendor. They typically pay a lot better than your gig at HIO and you can build time faster while gaining real-world cross country experience. Then you'll have your pick of regionals and be able to take whatever bonus is offered at the time. My $0.02.

This also is not an ideal solution, almost like a Robin Hood line of thinking - steal from one to pay another. But as you'll see from our friends at PSA, ethics aren't really a driving force of their business model. :D

Just enjoy the flying. Focus on honing your craft, while developing the next generation of pilots behind you.

Congrats on starting your career - we're excited for you and hope to have you continue to share your insight and experiences! Good luck!

just look back 3 years ago in this industry... jobs were hard to come by, the pay was in the low 20K across the regional world... Now anywhere you go, you will mostly get a $7500+ signing bonus and a first year off total income in the 50K range, and you need to have a pulse to get hired... Imagine how much can change in the next 2 years... you could be making a really good choice grabbing that $7500, if everything craps out in the near future ( not likely ) or you can be selling yourself short if this pay and signing bonus madness keeps going up, (most likely).

Check out the adds on here. There were several flight schools in DFW area that were flying pretty much non stop. My friends there were flying north of 100 hours a month consistently.

If you are really interested then go to the forum for flight schools and ask those instructors what they are averaging.

Get your CFII, MEI. If you're with HAA the hours and money will come fast. In a year you'll be able to go anywhere.

Did some digging and found a good aerial imaging gig starting in mid October each year that'll rack you up 600-1000 hours, flying the 172 and PA-23. Interesting because the place I'm doing PPT-Commercial uses all Piper; Arrow and Warrior for singles, and Aztec for multi. Interestingly I'd have the Aztec optional experience they wanted, but not the 172 at that point, the plane just about everyone has flown. Eh maybe when I choose a place for CFI I'll get some 172 time.

I'll check out around DFW though, always was probably going to end up down there with Envoy likely. Cheap to rent a place and for a little while I've a friend who'd let me crash at his place for a bit. Weather won't cancel lessons nearly as often as it would in a Northeast winter. It's good to have a bajilion contingency plans for everything, though. Strange, as I'm not usually one to make them. Usually I just shoot for what I want then if it screws up I improvise. A bit harder to do in this situation. Thanks for the tip!

Don't do it
/thread

Don't.. Don't.. Don't do it..

As previously stated -

Don't do it.