Less of a risk today than in the past, but anything's possible. I picked a "better" regional back before the housing bubble popped (and oil, and SARs, age 65, etc) and man was I glad I did. Cost me some years of career progression, but I spent the long downturn home with my kids instead of doing transcon commutes to sit CA reserve at a bottom feeder.

Bottom line is, there's no guarantee of getting an interview anywhere. Let's make the place we're at the best it can possibly be. Why? We might be stuck, you never know. Keep the pressure on at all times.

Can someone please elaborate on this? I'm looking to start at a Skywest partnered flight school next month and sign up with their cadet program which now includes a $15,000 tuition reimbursement (after 1 year of employment with Skywest I believe).


I've been trying to read through this site, Skywest, and the flight school's page to attain as much information as possible before making this jump.

All good ideas. So is exploring other options besides Skywest. Know what you are getting into.

Instead of providing a straight increase in pay for everyone, management reshuffled money. They took away all bonuses and profit sharing for FO's and increase the FO hourly rate. Also took away discretionary 401k for everyone. Most FO's would have seen an increase in pay overall, but not a ton. Their calculator showed me getting around a 10% pay increase, but it didn't include some of the bonuses I just started getting, or the ones I'll be getting in <6 months. It also didn't factor in an increase in profit from tax cuts, which will increase bonus value. With these considerations, the increase is actually less than 10%. Even if it was 10%, we are far enough behind other companies in pay that 10% still seems low.

Captains lost some bonuses, but kept pilot profit sharing. Small increase to hourly rate, but with everything that was taken away, it actually ended up being a pay cut for numerous pilots. For those it wasn't a pay cut, it still was barely a raise.

Also, the company didn't included pay comparison numbers for 2019. Only 2018 and then 2020. This is because in 2019, Republic gets a big raise while our pay would have been stagnant. Republic captains would be making, I want to say $3-4 more per hour than our captains, next year? I could be off on the exact number, but you get the idea. VERY underhanded.

Also, they'd be getting rid of the financial bonus which is based off of profit. Profit is expected to increase due to the new tax cuts, which means that bonus will probably be worth more, which is why management wanted to get rid of it before we realize it's increased value.

There's more to it, like a HUGE lack of quality of life improvements. As well as other trickery. We currently have a duty rig of 1 hour of pay for every 2 hours of SCHEDULED duty. The new pay agreement would have changed scheduled to ACTUAL, which is much better for days where delays cause you to sit around all day. However, this was only going to go into effect next year for some reason...

Also, there was going to be override pay if you're awarded more than X hours of work per month. So you'd get, for example, 150% for everything of 87 hours (might not be the exact value). The problem is, they used BLOCK instead of CREDIT. This is a HUGE difference. I credit over 100 hours every month. I block around 80 per month, and I'm pushing federal limits. You can only block 1000 hours per year, which averages at 83 per month. So really, this was pointless and would rarely effect most people in a meaningful way. If it was based on CREDIT, it would have been a considerable pay increase.

How well has it worked out for Frontier? Just saying......

And no I am not a sapa cheerleader.

-Keep the dirty side down

You’re right, why seek a better contract and working conditions then. I mean if Frontier can’t do it smoothly, then probably nobody can

I agree with his point about Frontier...they will NOT be allowed to strike until the summer flying season is over, at least. So, anyone that says we should unionize just to be able to strike is advocating years of stagnation while negotiating, then more time dragging out before the government approves your strike. Unions just aren't that good for labor any more.



But, I still might vote for one--especially if the company starts paying out more bonuses instead of negotiating again.

Frontier is a bad example, probably worst case? And sure, it could go that way negotiating for a contract with Skywest. But maybe it could be the smoothest transition also. It would probably be something in between, or average. Bottom line is, if your in house union SAPA, isn’t doing its job, don’t settle for it. The problem with a company sponsored union is they still have all the leverage. Whether it was ALPA or Teamsters, neither would’ve passed that latest TA for a vote.

Lol really? I’ve been at RPA 3+ years and have never been based east of ORD.