BJgj4700

I've been offered an FO position at both TSA and Envoy. Both are very appealing to me. I live in Mid Missouri so STL base with TSA and the ability to quickly commute (non-stop) from COU to ORD or DFW with Envoy is appealing.

TSA has the RTW where I can get my add ons and time build in Mid Mo close to home. Envoy has RTP at Coast Flight (TX or CA). Either are fine. Any recommendations regarding QOL, base/equipment assignments, etc?

FlyingKat

LOL you're kidding right?

BJgj4700

No guarantee of STL base with TSA. That’s my sticking point. May have to commute either way.

FlyingKat

At this point its Envoy hands down. Much more stable with a better futre. TSA guys are leaving for Envoy left and right. Best case TSA gets sold to Republic and problems get fixed. Worst case it doesn't happen and we either get sold to Mesa or we end up going backwards to the way this place was in 2007. Since KS left this place is going backwards. Payroll is still a mess and our dysfunctional management can't even get this new contract worked out.

Tankerds

Not sure if you're trolling or what... But I'm going to assume you're not trolling and are just either naive or uninformed. There is no competition right now between the two regionals you have mentioned. Envoy, hands down, is the winner in literally every single category. From your post it seems you would be commuting either way, so TSA doesn't even have the upper hand as far as you living in base.

So to quickly go over WHY Envoy wins hands down, I'll give you the three "big" things (and the "big" thing list is probably 10 or so long depending on the person you ask) which for me are: Long Term Goals, Pay, and QOL. First off has to be the stuff that long term puts you in a better position. Envoy has the pathway to American, which is pretty much a guaranteed job as American after 7 or so years (right this second that is, can go either way but it seems as if it will be less for the next 10-15 years and if you started right now you are probably looking at around 5ish years. Don't quote me on that, just my educated guess.), TSA has an agreement with Frontier right now, which is pretty much tied for the ****tiest low-cost (with Allegiant). Frontier has the ability to move up a tier to a Spirit level low-cost though, but as of now they're not. Now before someone jumps me for saying American's flow is a guarantee, I'll ad that it's not exactly a guarantee, but it's your job to lose. ****ing **** up at your regional will lose you that opportunity, but if you keep your head down, nose clean etc. you will get the job. TSA's other avenue.

Next up is pay. There two kinds of pilots, those who live for fly, and those who fly to live. Honestly, I'm a fly to live type of guy. I really do enjoy flying, and of all the things I could get paid to do to make a living, this is what I would choose to do. But the money aspect is very important to me, more important to me than what type of plane I fly. I don't know where you lay your priorities, so take it with a grain of salt. Right now Envoy is offering something ridiculous like 22K (might be even more) on your first day of ground school or something like that. It's awesome, and honestly I respect the hell out of them for this. Because it allows the pilot to not be concerned about bills, food, mortgage/rent etc. you name it. Money can't buy happiness, but money does a hell of a lot of other things. They also have a good hourly rate, better than TSA, along with other bonuses on the way. I don't know them off the top of my ahead, but I figure you can look them up yourself. TSA offers 12k after IOE, so the 2.5-3.5 months you are training... Hope you either have a good savings account or your wife has a good job. During training you can expect your small paycheck to be about $700, and bigger around $1100. I'm glad regionals pay you during your training nowadays, when they didn't back in the day. But still, this is barely enough to just scrape by.

QOL: Base matters a lot here, and commuting does kind of suck. I did it for a while, so I can tell you what sucks about it and what things can make it better. You want to make sure your flight time to base is not a double flight commute. Throw any bases like that out the window, it will wear on your far too quickly. Second, make sure flight time is less than about 2 hours, 2.5 is starting to push it but would be worth it for the major type jobs that pay a hell of a lot more. Also, look into which carriers fly the route, and how many flights TOTAL there are a day on all carriers. Side note here, Saturdays are reduced schedules for most carriers, see also how many there are on Saturday. Check times, how early does the first flight to your base go out? What's the latest coming back home? I did RDU-DCA (DCA was base) for 10 months, and it wasn't bad at all at about 45 min flight time, around 1 hourish total time. I had 12 flights daily between two major carriers, so I wasn't worried about not making it into work. It also allowed me to leave pretty close to my show time, and never get stuck on go-home day in base. Reserve and commuting blows, there's just no other way to put it. Make sure you find out how senior the base you want for commuting is. Luckily for you I *think* ORD is not very senior at Envoy. STL at TSA is the most senior base, and with losing all the American flying you can't expect to get that as a base anytime in the near future. Additionally, and this might be the BIGGEST point of them all regarding QOL, is how often Trans States is having to Junior Man their pilots. If you don't know what that is, look it up. It SUCKS. Nothing stings more than thinking you are going to see your wife at home for a couple days, only to be told 2 of those days are now the companies to bend you over as they wish. Don't get me wrong, Envoy could do the exact same thing, but because of all the perks Envoy has to offer, they don't have to Junior Man guys very often as they have the staffing levels required for their aircraft. TSA does not, because they fell behind in the race of the regionals and took on too much flying with not enough guys. Once they started Junior Manning pilots, people started to leave. Once this happens, it starts a viscious cycle of more and more JR manning. They have gotten to the point where guys are being maxed out on JR mans each month, meaning contractually the company can't do it anymore (but oh, scheduling will and does try to break the contract OFTEN. Regardless of your airline, know your contract well otherwise you will be taken advantage of like a drunk girl at a frat house).

That's all I got for now. I hope you've read this far... Lol.

Msg me if you want anymore info. As you may have picked up, I am a former TSA pilot.

TyWebb

Tankers, I know that wasn't for me, but thank you for your time on that write up.

m20cmark21

Good points, but just to clarify here, on the junior assignments:

Yes, the company can junior assign you down to (or below) minimum days off, which are 12/month for a line holder and 11/month for reserves. I was going to paraphrase, but here is a contract excerpt governing Junior Assignments:

" A pilot will not be junior assigned more than two (2)
occurrences (no more than three (3) calendar days) per
month unless the pilot agrees otherwise. In addition, in
exceptional circumstances, a pilot may be junior assigned
three (3) additional one (1) day trips per year. "

Does it suck, yes. Should it happen as much as it did in August (some people getting it to the max)? Probably not. Was staffing around the operation adversely affected by hiring, and people leaving once hearing the news about East Coast base reshuffling? Yes.

For those interested in reading about how you are compensated for your time when junior assigned, here is the language:

"
5. Compensatory Days Off for Junior Assignments

a. A pilot who is improperly junior assigned shall receive
a compensatory day off, with flight pay credit of four
and a quarter (4.25) hours as follows: the pilot shall
identify two (2) potential days off, and the Company
shall select one (1) of these two (2) days. These days
must be either the first or last day of a scheduled trip
pairing. This day off will not reduce the pilot below
guarantee.

b. A pilot with the contractual minimum days off will not
be junior assigned before more senior pilots who have
more than the contractual minimum days off. A pilot
who is junior assigned on one (1) of his minimum days
off will be given a compensatory day off for each day
such pilot is junior assigned with flight pay credit of
four and a quarter (4.25) hours per day.

c. If a pilot is junior assigned prior to the 20th of a
month, then the compensatory day must be provided
in that month, unless mutually agreed otherwise.
Any compensatory day carried over must be granted
in the month following the junior assignment.

d. The compensatory day off will be assigned by Crew
Scheduling taking into account the pilot’s preference to
the extent possible. A compensatory day taken in the
following month will be considered a day of work for
guarantee purposes."

ninerdriver

For the record, those junior man work rules at TSA are pretty awful. Is there any extra pay for legal junior assignments, or is it only straight time?

FlyingKat

You bet paid extra. 200%

m20cmark21

In August it was 300%... PLUS getting 4.25 for a COMP day if assigned below min days off.