Got a live interview, any idea of realistic first year pay? I’m thinking I’ll be around a 25k pay cut from my part 135 job

 

Are bases still awarded at the end of ground school before sim begins?

 

If you run the math, for a 7 week training footprint at 65 hrs guarantee, and the remaining weeks of the year at 76 hours, it comes out to $40500. Then you're adding per diem which is hard to calculate, and anything above the guarantee that you credit.

Probably realistically 45k, although there are some other guys making a bit more than that.

First year pay

This isn't including any profit sharing, bonuses, or per diem.

 

Hello all!

Getting ready to make the jump into the 121 world from corporate. Already have a class date assigned with SkyWest, and trying to get some insight to be better prepared for that. 121 lifestyle would be a whole new world and just trying to get a bettee of what to expect going forward.

So in regards to schedules, would it be possible to have a schedule where I have the same days on/off every week or build a schedule where I got some specific days off every time? i.e: Have Thursday’s and Sunday’s off

What options, if any, would I have to get something like that? How long (seniority) would that take?

Thanks in advance for your responses, they are greatly appreciated!

 

Two year old info here, but they passed out a sheet during the week of Indoc and we all ranked each base we wanted in order of preference. I was a cadet and in the front of the class so I had “first dibs” … but not really much to bid on. I think they ran the actual vacancy bid for the company, then ran us afterward and assigned us where they could. At the time you could only really count on ORD and DTW. That month about a dozen happened to get DEN because they decided to grow it a lot for the summer. You should have full website access by the time you get to class, so you can see the vacancies and seniority for the previous months’ award. The seniority tab on the pilot recruitment website is the easiest way though. Anything with a 2021 date is a potential option. I haven’t looked at it in a while; with the exception of ORD it’s actually really interesting to see all those 2021 junior dates. Neat.

 

Hello everyone,

I've literally read around a hundred pages to gather all the information I may need to make a decision, and the only thing I'd need some help with is the salary for first and second year.

I see the payscale and I've learnt from others that one should only count with minimum guarantee. I certainly agree, but I also need to see the real earning potential, best case scenario I guess you could say.

If hired, and offered an ERJ class, how long could I expect to be on reserve in Denver? counting with the expected deliveries and some post-covid recovery. Any educated guess about total 1st and 2nd year pay?. This is the main question. I like to work extra, IF available of course.

Thanks for your help.
Cheers.

 

No one is going to really know reserve times for a while. We’re getting a bunch of planes in both fleets. Several bases are growing, including Denver. This could either mean a bunch of new hires staff it from the bottom up (ie you guys are at the bottom and on reserve for a while) or it could get staffed from transfers, meaning you might not even get it for a while. This next year us going to be wild. We’re also losing a lot of people a month now, I bet soon we go back to the 50-60+ once everyone is hiring. An internal report the other day shows lots of people going to spirit, United, cargo, among others.

As for pay. A good rule of thumb is to take your hourly pay rate and multiply by 1000. If you want to be extra conservative, multiply it by 900. You’ll notice 76*12 is 912. A thousand is a safe estimate by the time you accrue per diem and various pilot bonuses. I just did some quick checking. On third year pay $56.58*1000 is $56,580. As a lineholder getting 85-90 average hours a month, including per diem, and subtracting insurance and 401k deductions, and then add the pilot bonuses, I’m on target to take home $55K to $56K (again this is after all deductions for HSA, 401k, insurance, taxes, everything). Pretty spot on. So if you want to err on the cautious side, assuming on reserve not breaking guarantee or picking up extra flying and not getting much per diem, 900 times first year pay may be a good estimate.

 

Agreed (filler)

 

This is exactly what I needed, thanks buddy!.

I know reserve could be rather LONG, but I have faith attrition and/or growth could minimize that.

 

Two years ago, we were bringing in 100-120 new hires a month, and I was seeing an average increase of 65 seniority numbers a month. You could upgrade in 18 months or less; if you waited 2 or 3 years you could upgrade into a line at a junior base or maybe even get into the base you were currently at as an FO. Guys were going to mow cost carriers without upgrading. Eventually regionals can only get so big due to scope and how many airplanes they have (over simplified but you get the idea), meaning we won’t hire infinitely and guys have to move on somewhere. Last year SAPA said only ≈150 guys (out of over 5000) would be approaching mandatory retirement in the next couple years. So in my mind all this hiring seems to anticipate attrition (to majors and LCC). It also seems to me that they want it have a lot of pilots trained and in place for all the 175 and CRJ700 coming online in the next year (around 50 aircraft). Whether these planes are just a 1 for 1 replacement of aging fleets, or CRJ200s, or perhaps (but hopefully not) at the expense of another carrier’s flying (since scope limits large RJs, there can only be a finite number of 175s and 900s) is a topic that can be speculated endlessly. At the end of the day, I don’t think we’re hiring just for the sake of building the seniority list. Prior to COVID, a new hire could hold almost any base on any equipment within a year of IOE, the exceptions being PDX and SAN.

Now, whether you’d be on eternal reserve or not…at one point bases like DFW would have 75-80 lineholders and 30-35 reserves. You’d wait a while to get in, then end up being the very bottom guy. You’re home based now, but 30 people are ahead of you. Meanwhile you just transferred out of Detroit and that same month DTW had about 160 lineholders and about 5 total reserves. Always a moving target.