Unfortunately, raising pay is the last thing Eagle, or any company for that matter, will do. It is far cheaper to pay for sim time to get new hires in the short term than it would be to raise wages for all employees over the long term. I agree that increased hourly pay would attract candidates. But no airline would do that, even if they could easily afford it, because then the unions would have the airlines by the balls and they would fall victim to the unions. They would never let that happen.

They are leaving to the majors. You don't need to have turbine PIC time at some of the majors now. Look at Continental's minimums. 500 PIC in a FW with 500 SIC in a turbine. That's good enough for me to leave.

That is incorrect. CAL min requires 1000 hours turbine AND 1000 hrs FW PIC or 500 hrs FW PIC and 500 SIC turbojet time, inaddition to min of 1500 hours FW total time.

to sum it up I think....every regional I think has its own problem in some form or another may it be upgrade, union, pay, bases, planes,QOL, e.t.c its just the state of the industry....with all the hiring going on. We just have to do our best to live with it for who knows how long.

That maybe but some regionals have definitely better QOL and pay. I have seen quite a number of AE pilots jump ship. I am not saying everyone should leave their airline for a better one but at some point you have to decide whether it would be worth it for you to stick it out for a few more years or change your airline now before you feel it is too late. Getting on Majors is not as easy as some make it out to be. Maybe for some it is, but I know very few Regional FOs who got hire by Majors lately. Almost all of the ones getting hired by Majors that I have seen are Regional CAs with a couple of thousand turbine PIC time, in addition to having more than 5000 hours total time.

He's right. While some FO's do get to the majors most don't. Delta has hired a handful of FO's (mostly women or offspring of Delta Captains or both), but i stuck my head into one of our new hire classes a while back and the average flight time was over 6,000 with over 2,500 turbine pic. That average figure included some fighter guys in the high teens. Some civilians had much more than the average.

I do agree but Eagle isn't an airline that I wouldn't make that kind of bet on if my future career goals included getting to the majors some time in the next 4-7 years.

BUT……………when you retire and look back on your career, only then can you tell if your bets paid off. After all, in the end it’s all really just “Dumb Luck!”

This is just an opinion--but seriously, look at some the mainline-owned regional carriers--PSA, Horizon, Piedmont, Comair, AE...they all have relatively long upgrades and thus high labor costs. In this day and age of low-time cheap labor and a general trend of outsourcing, those carriers are probably a lot more prone to getting packaged and sold than "mercenary" carriers who have the flexibility to fly for whoever they get contracts with. Eventually a point comes where the higher labor cost margin of running connection flights with 7/5 yr Capt & FO outweighs paying another co. to do that same connection flying with 2 yr Capt/1 yr FO.

In this day and age, I would imagine the mngmt at AA and Delta would want to outsource as much of the risk and price competition of the domestic markets to regional carriers, and focus their mainline operations on lucrative biz travel routes and transcons. I'm not saying that's a good thing for pilots, just saying that a mainline-owned regional doesn't offer the stability it once did.

Now, if any of the above mentioned carriers had flowthroughs that amounted to anything but carrot-waving to get pilots, those companies would be worth the 7 year wait.

If only mgmt understood this...