I strongly agree with the Buzz, however I must admit that is actually pretty funny.

Scoop

Well said, sir. It's probably the best time to be landing a first airline job (and subsequent career progression) that I've seen in two decades. The ATP/1500 hr thing does recreate the "canyon" that used to always be there between getting one's ratings and actually being employable, but just put that CFI to use for 2-3 years (and/or tow banners, gliders, or haul skydivers) and you'll have multiple regionals fighting over you. The pilot shortage has absolutely arrived at the entry-level.

You do have a point that it's much easier to land an entry level job today as compared to previous times, however I'd much rather flight instruct for 3000 hours, spend 2-3 years in a 19 seat turboprop and then get hired at a major.

Nowadays you get hired into a modern RJ with minimum time, but you have to spend 10-15 years on that RJ earning subpar wages. It's not a good trade off.

Sadly, that's probably not too far from reality.

But again, if regionals didn't exist, Delta's profits would decrease and your profit sharing/pay rates would go down.

So I don't know why people don't want to admit that pay rates at the majors are subsidized by pay rates at the regionals.

So why did we all go ch11 during the RJ outsourcing orgy from 2000-2010? One could argue that having 500+ high seat cost Barbie jets doing hourly flts between ATL and SAV contributed greatly to the massive losses and subsequent ch11s.

I am willing to bet if Regionals (too inefficient and impossible to reign in on quality control and branding) did not exist, Mainline would be making a ton more money. (Kinda like the SWA model). However, to be fair, transfer the Regional flying back to mainline.

My opinion about Regionals is that they are put there to create a whip-saw environment.


TEN

True. Although the retirement numbers do MORE to contribute to "ticket to the big tent" than just profits. Because at some places, it could be argued that if there was no age 65 passing, there would have STILL be hiring AFTER the 2008 crash. Although just a slow trickle, it would have been necessary to hire pilots at the legacies, and even SWA, FedEx, UPS, etc.

As opposed to the all out freeze and the blurb of 200-ish that happened at DAL in 2010.

Also, take a look at some of the what AA is doing to AE, and what is happening at XJT. Even though there's legacies jobs to be had, they STILL WANT concessions from the pilots at the regionals. Does that make sense?

Sounds about right. Although the downward leverage that the legacies were able to exude on their regional feeders also had the effect of narrowing down the regional profit margins. Take a look at some of those regionals now. Reporting losses, even though the legacies are paying LESS for some of their regional feed than BEFORE 9/11.

The REALITY of the circlejerkfest argument that ALWAYS rears it's ugly head on this topic.

True statement, and your point was beat to death in another thread. But also, as you probably know, at the time when the barrier to entry was higher, the "life expectancy" of the regional pilot was overall less than half of what it is NOW.

Meaning, in that era, a regional pilot may be max 4 years before "normal" advancement to a "career destination". Whereas now, some of the regional operators have 7-8 year FO's and 10 year CA's are STILL on reserve.

NO DOUBT, the overall job of a regional pilot is BETTER than the era you reference. But the duration of the job is much longer than that era you mentioned.

Well, after reading this thread, I guess I didn't do it. The regionals did.

Thanks!
filler

Delta pilots are making substantially less than they were 15 years ago while at the same time most regional pilots now days are making way more than regional pilots were 15 years ago. You should go complain elsewhere.