No such thing as a "quality" regional. Only regionals that suck less than other regionals.
I would group Colgan with the rest of the lowest tier of regionals. They just happen to suck more than the other regionals do. The bottom line is ALL regionals suck and are not/never where meant to be a career destination. Use them for what they are, an experience enhancing JOB and go on to some place that is a real career.
I fly for UPS and since I started flying professionally 21 years ago, I've always had way more than 4 days off a month. In a 28 day pay period, I fly on average 12 days and I'm off 16 days.
Heh.
I hold 16 days off a month, every month, fly free first class to Tokyo, have a 401k match at 5%, full benefits, better reserve rules than mainline, a better bid system than malinline, make enough money to live comfortaby in a very cool, very expensive apartment in trendy Hoboken (Oh, by the way, my pay is higher than a 1st year CAL FO flying a 767...) and I enjoy a work group whose morale is higher than any legacy carrier I can think of. No, I don't think this 'sucks' by any measure.
Further, since I live in base and hold day trips (sleeping in my own bed every night is
wonderful), I fly with plenty of people who have made ExpressJet a career. These guys typically drive luxury automobiles, have nice houses in the Poconos, and can afford to send their kids to private schools and take their wives to Paris during their 4 weeks of vacation. Something tells me they don't really think it 'sucks' either.
I am continually amused by people who are incapable of separating a slipshod operation like Mesa from a industry-leading company like ExpressJet on the grounds that they equipment they operate is externally similar. I find it difficult to get angry at these people, however, as it is painfully obvious that they are speaking from a standpoint of complete and utter ignorance. It must 'suck' to be them.
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John, I think you will soon find that you were not owned by any stretch of the imagination. Welcome to the Monkey House (re: Vonnegut).