Quote:
Originally Posted by Window_Seat
This thinking is exactly what is wrong with the industry... then what?
x2.
FYI, you can always apply to Colgan and do my old job. I think they're still hiring. I once flew 737s for Continental and made a whopping $28k/year. But that was too expensive, so I got furloughed. Now, about 35% of the routes I once flew are operated by Colgan and flown by pilots who are more than willing to throw themselves at $18k/year jobs because they think that some day they'll make it to a mainline job.
Regional flying used to be an honorable way to build time and make it to the mainline. Today, even regional airlines are undercutting themselves and finding ways to pay pilots even less (gojets, Colgan). So people were willing to accept horrid pay and QOL because they could upgrade to Captain in months, and build enough time to get hired by a major airline in just a few years. That's not the way it works any more. It's possible that you could be "stuck" at your regional airline for decades.
It's completely backwards from 10 years ago. A ton of mainline flying has been outsourced to regionals. United airlines used to have over 10,000 pilots and now it's about 5,000 + thousands of RJs. The sad thing is that regional pay never grew along with the size of aircraft being operated - we have 70-90 seat RJs flying transcon routes at 1990s era B1900 pay rates. And there's no shortage of people willing to fly larger jets for less money.
So like I said, good luck in this industry.