When looking at airlines, how important for seniority, upgrade times, QOL is the pilot per aircraft ratio?

I've seen some airlines with less than 7 pilots per aircraft and as high as 16 per.

The lower the pilots per aircraft the more days you will have to work, and the more JA and extension you will have to deal with, however movement up is typically quicker.

The higher the pilots per aircraft the reserve length will typically be longer, less flying per month, and movement up is slower.

10-12 is a decent range, below that your QOL will suffer, above that your progression will suffer.

These are all ballpark as things like average stage length, trip quality (credit/day, etc.), and scheduling rules can shift that range up or down.

This question depends ENTIRELY on aircraft utilization, block hours, and work rules.

A "good QOL" ratio for UPS will be different than for Southwest than will be different for Skywest than will be different for Delta.

Thanks for info guys.

For domestic ops, less than 10 will start to suck.

Unless you are at a regional and just want to get your TPIC and move on. And you don’t even have to share your bunker bunkroom with five other guys.

Everything is relative I suppose.

So it definitely can be an indicator of flying time available. Thanks.

So in doing research on several regionals I'm interested in, I noticed a big disparity amongst them in pilots per aircraft and relation to how many pilots cannot hold a line and how long they're on reserve.

Here are the figures for 9 regionals. Please feel free to correct any numbers or other info. These numbers are from the Airline Profiles section on APC.

Airline/ Number of Aircraft / Pilots / Pilots per Aircraft
1)Envoy- 171 / 2500 / 14.6
2)Republic- 189 / 2445 / 12.9
3)Endeavor- 154 / 1905 / 12.4
4)Compass- 56 / 663 / 11.8
5)GoJet- 54 / 600 / 11.1
6)SkyWest- 476 / 4621 / 9.7
7)CommutAir- 32 / 306 / 9.6
8)Mesa- 145 / 1200 / 8.3
9)ExpressJet- 171 / 1136 / 6.6

So by these numbers, can you assume that the carriers with a ratio above 12 pilots per aircraft are over staffed and have excessive reserve times? And does ExpressJet have any reserve? 6.6 pilots per aircraft? They have the same number of aircraft as Republic and less than half the pilots. Why are their upgrades so long?

I'm just trying to make an informed decision and not have to sit reserve for a very long time. Thanks.

That's a calculation I've done before myself.

However, keep in mind that the numbers on APC may not be up to date.
As far as those shops;
1) Probably correct. If you read up on their pages, seems like their sitting some long reserve. Gearing up for something? Only their mgmt knows.
2,3,4) Also likely correct. And a decent ratio for these times...people moving on fairly quickly...gives their training time to catch up.
5) GoJet pilots tend to fly quite a bit. So, could be.
6) SkyWest actually had their own software made...proprietary...to streamline the schedule / bid algorithm. That, and having bases all over the frigging place! Yeah, those #s could be correct.
7) Don't know enough about CommutAir.
8) Mesa runs their people pretty hard.
9) Think those EXJ numbers are off.

Envoy numbers are off. Correct ratio is 12.5.