In your experience, why are some pilots are regionals “lifers?”

JDean3204 said:
If I had a chance to drop the airlines, be a management type at smaller legitimate 135 company and be home every night I’d do it. But no 135 company is really legitimate, and unless a huge recession happens the 135 world will continue to have more staffing issues, due to their illegitimacy.
Click to expand...

It's not all it's cracked up to be. Even at a "legit" place.
 
I am at a regional now and could easily be a lifer.
I would like to leave eventually but it’s really pretty comfortable here. Pilots love to complain but honestly I make more money than most of my peers and I work less. And I fly around in first class for free :)
The main reasons I’d consider staying at the regional; seniority and living in base. Commuting is no picknic and neither is uprooting your life to live in a expensive major hub city.
Also with so many guys leaving I am skyrocketing up the seniority list. I’d take me another 20+ years to see this type of seniority at the mainline.
Like I said I’d like to leave, but if I don’t I won’t consider myself a failure.
 
Living in base at a regional =! guaranteed stability or long term viability of said base.

Comair pilots knew CVG would never go away. ASA pilots knew ATL would never go away.

I've commuted and lived in base and am now about to move across the country for a 3rd time in this job. It's never easy uprooting your life to live in an expensive major hub city, but sometimes that's a decision you have to make to be there for the wife and the little kids. I'm lucky to be in a position to escape the regionals in my mid 20s and CA at a legacy in mid 30s. But it cost me in terms of several long distance moves. From a mental/family sanity it has been worth it. I fully get that guys who are older in their 40s and 50s have kids that are older in high school and/or wives that are well established in jobs etc that they can't all just uproot and move, forcing a commute on yourself. But if you are at a regional in your 20s, 30s, and even 40s, you should absolutely look to move on.
 
There are lots of reasons stated above, but honestly in MOST cases I found that people were afraid to step out of their comfort zone and take a chance. This often lead to a lot of excuses on "why" that weren't exactly honest.

There are also a lot of people who feel entitled to moving up the ladder and as a result don't put any of the legwork in. Instead they complain about "these FOs that are way junior to me are getting all the calls because they go to the stupid job fairs. I have eleventy billion hours of blah blah blah. My f'ing money!!!!" Meanwhile others who accept the rules of how the game is played are getting ahead.
 
Everyone's different. Being a regional lifer doesn't have to equate to living in a leper colony. We have 200+ out of 2400+ pilot group, and that's the ones that declined the flow.
Know one guy planning to decline flow soon - former F-117 pilot (F-15 before that, of the "what the hell is this, where's the new super mig killer??" guys @MikeD spoke about), happily retired from .mil, loves what he does now, in his mid-late 50s and has no desire to commute to a crashpad. QoL trumps extra frogskins.
 
Screaming_Emu said:
There are lots of reasons stated above, but honestly in MOST cases I found that people were afraid to step out of their comfort zone and take a chance. This often lead to a lot of excuses on "why" that weren't exactly honest.

There are also a lot of people who feel entitled to moving up the ladder and as a result don't put any of the legwork in. Instead they complain about "these FOs that are way junior to me are getting all the calls because they go to the stupid job fairs. I have eleventy billion hours of blah blah blah. My f'ing money!!!!" Meanwhile others who accept the rules of how the game is played are getting ahead.
Click to expand...

I've spoken to a lot of guys and some on the "sidebar" during certain events. A lot of the "lifer" types generally get comfortable, buy far too many toys, get seduced by the 'weekends and holidays off' and still pine to move up the food chain. But their lives are so heavily leverages with loans, boats, kids and the "quicksand" of trying to play 1950s "stay at home mom" family, that they're shackled and risk averse.

I probably stepped on a toe or two, it's not personal, just a very general non-specific observation.
 
Derg said:
I've spoken to a lot of guys and some on the "sidebar" during certain events. A lot of the "lifer" types generally get comfortable, buy far too many toys, get seduced by the 'weekends and holidays off' and still pine to move up the food chain. But their lives are so heavily leverages with loans, boats, kids and the "quicksand" of trying to play 1950s "stay at home mom" family, that they're shackled and risk averse.

I probably stepped on a toe or two, it's not personal, just a very general non-specific observation.
Click to expand...

I think that's one o the reasons it's important to always view the regionals as a stepping stone. If you're not planning on staying in a hotel room for very long you tend not to unpack as much.
 
BigZ said:
Everyone's different. Being a regional lifer doesn't have to equate to living in a leper colony. We have 200+ out of 2400+ pilot group, and that's the ones that declined the flow.
Know one guy planning to decline flow soon - former F-117 pilot (F-15 before that, of the "what the hell is this, where's the new super mig killer??" guys @MikeD spoke about), happily retired from .mil, loves what he does now, in his mid-late 50s and has no desire to commute to a crashpad. QoL trumps extra frogskins.
Click to expand...
My guess is you are at Eagle/Envoy. Tell Brad I said hello
 
ppragman said:
Another thing is fear. I'll admit that I was just comfortable enough financially and was too afraid to go fly for the 121 world.

It wasn't the work or the training that scared me (though I imagine some people are intimidated by that) - I was afraid of the culture. I didn't think I would fit in in RJ land. Of course that's a dumb thing to be scared of, but I was a lot younger and much of my identity was tied up in bush pilot stuff and I thought that people would recognize me for the imposter I thought I was. "Kill the INTERLOPER!"

In retrospect I think I'm not as bushy as I was convinced I was.
Click to expand...

The regionals have people from all walks of life, so it’s unfortunate your younger self thought that. Obviously it seems to have worked out fine for you in the end, but I’m just saying it’s unfortunate that you were afraid of not fitting in to that type of workplace.
 
When I was at Republic in 2011-2014 I would say 30% of the CA list were lifers. BUT I can confidently say about a 1/3 of those, the pilot job became the “side job” when there other job became more lucrative. A lot lost the flying bug and it literally became just a paycheck.

The regional job with 18 days off working only mon-Wed, allowed them to grow their real estate/internet marketing/trading company.

And I totally get it.
 
Last edited:
Cherokee_Cruiser said:
Are we sure this is a self-aggrandizing type of statement or a jab at being on the outside of the bell curve average of newhire flight times? Lets be honest, when a legacy says the average civilian newhire time is 5,700 hrs, you'd have to agree that pretty much anything above 12,000 hrs is on the outside of the bell curve. It's a game of averages. Now I'm NOT saying guys with 12k+ hrs will not get a call. But I can see their point when it comes to the statistical chance of being in that bell curve of average newhire flight times.
Click to expand...

It’s more about the gall of the statement itself, and the correlation of flight hours to experience. Is 20,000 hours of flight time in a CRJ between DHN and MEI and ATL 20,000 hours of experience or 1,000 hours of experience 20 times?
 
mastermags said:
It’s more about the gall of the statement itself, and the correlation of flight hours to experience. Is 20,000 hours of flight time in a CRJ between DHN and MEI and ATL 20,000 hours of experience or 1,000 hours of experience 20 times?
Click to expand...

What regional airline has three city pairings? Mine had me flying all over the US, Canada, and Mexico. It also prepared me very well for my current job, flying heavies all over Asia.

There are certainly those that get stuck because they didn’t finish college or whatever. But there are also lots of really motivated and experienced RJ CAs that are not moving on simply because of bad luck. I was stuck for many years myself, and despite trying everything I could think of it seemed like nobody would call me.

I finally was able to get a couple shots at moving on, but I was very lucky. I had a few key people in the right spots at the right time that were able to make some things happen for me. Not everyone will have that happen, especially if you’re unlucky enough to be in the lost decade RJ zone.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top