Regionals vs. Majors

tlove482

tlove482

Well-Known Member
Everyone complains about the regionals. Take away the difference in pay and then compare them. What would the major differences be?
 
Job security (sometimes), contract differences, night and day difference in scheduling. The list goes on and on, plenty of info already floating around the forum on this
 
What's so different about scheduling out of curiosity? I know both regionals and majors fly from roughly 5am-1am so how are the schedules that much different? Longer overnights? Shorter duty days?
 
Everything to do with work rules ie. CBA.
For my ALPA friends, compare JetBlue and Skywest.
 
FlySooner9 said:
What's so different about scheduling out of curiosity? I know both regionals and majors fly from roughly 5am-1am so how are the schedules that much different? Longer overnights? Shorter duty days?
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In general Majors will have better soft time rules (duty rigs, min days etc) so while a pilot at a regional may have to fly 75 hours to credit 85 hours for the month, a guy at a major may only have to fly 60 hours to credit 85 hours (which translates into more days off).
 
Operations support quality is usually a big difference- At a regional there is usually lower quality mx, scheduling, training, and overall treating you as a number vs a human.

Pushy mechanics saying what they have to say to try to get you to take a plane that is not functioning well just to get the flight out, pushy schedulers throwing bogus numbers at you.... instructors that yell and do what they can to make you make a mistake (and get more upset when they can't get you to make one)...and so on.

It is night and day at a "real" carrier.
 
tlove482 said:
Everyone complains about the regionals. Take away the difference in pay and then compare them. What would the major differences be?
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Regionals disadvantages: training dept can be a poop show, benefits for health/dental/nonrev can be close to a joke, management completely detached from reality, line pilots unhappy (endeavor had guys leaving for jobs outside the industry at one point in disturbing numbers), unsafe hotels while playing hotel roulette, no support with passengers during IROPS.

Regionals are odd, they exist because they are cheap and the overwhelming majority of pilots will take the abuse. It's a short term business model that can't survive much longer without retention pay, but in some cases the extra pay makes them too expensive to keep running and the flying will go back to mainline.
 
BobDDuck said:
Not always the case. Over the years I bumped more than a few USAirways guys out of seats in the back, whilst still working at a regional.
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More details needed. Was it on YOUR metal or mainline? If mainline, Im impressed but - you were at a wholly owned? So, who knows...but Delta sure knows how to take care of ITS employees.
 
jynxyjoe said:
Regionals disadvantages: training dept can be a poop show, benefits for health/dental/nonrev can be close to a joke, management completely detached from reality, line pilots unhappy (endeavor had guys leaving for jobs outside the industry at one point in disturbing numbers), unsafe hotels while playing hotel roulette, no support with passengers during IROPS.

Regionals are odd, they exist because they are cheap and the overwhelming majority of pilots will take the abuse. It's a short term business model that can't survive much longer without retention pay, but in some cases the extra pay makes them too expensive to keep running and the flying will go back to mainline.
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And the ones that aren't offering them are withering on the vine.
 
surreal1221 said:
More details needed. Was it on YOUR metal or mainline? If mainline, Im impressed but - you were at a wholly owned? So, who knows...but Delta sure knows how to take care of ITS employees.
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Didn't matter what metal it was. As long as it said USAirways somewhere on the plane, my non rev priority was the same category as the mainline guy's... pure date of hire. I was at a WO.

They obviously had priority for the jumpseat if it was a mainline airplane.
 
BobDDuck said:
Didn't matter what metal it was. As long as it said USAirways somewhere on the plane, my non rev priority was the same category as the mainline guy's... pure date of hire. I was at a WO.

They obviously had priority for the jumpseat if it was a mainline airplane.
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I don't know of any contract carrier that doesn't have priority for the jumpseat on its own metal (e.g. PSA pilot on a PSA plane pm and so on), wholly owned or not.
 
PeanuckleCRJ said:
I don't know of any contract carrier that doesn't have priority for the jumpseat on its own metal (e.g. PSA pilot on a PSA plane pm and so on), wholly owned or not.
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Hence the "obviously".

That said, GoJet gave up priority on their own planes about 6 years ago, allowing United pilots to trump them, in exchange for a higher priority than the other UAX carriers on United aircraft. I don't think that lasted very long though.
 
Better hotels at mainline from what I've heard in the jumpseat. Plus some have certain requirements if it is a longer overnight, which means not getting stuck in an airport hotel for 22 hours.
 
In my short time here, I have heard the major difference is something about underwear...
 
BobDDuck said:
Didn't matter what metal it was. As long as it said USAirways somewhere on the plane, my non rev priority was the same category as the mainline guy's... pure date of hire. I was at a WO.

They obviously had priority for the jumpseat if it was a mainline airplane.
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Gotcha, yeah - had a feeling it likely had something to do with being a WO. Which, yup, can be nice.
 
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