career in a regional??

Flying_Corporal

Flying_Corporal

New Member
Why a career in a regional airline until retirement is viewed as a dead end job? As a captain you get relatively good pay and benefits aren't that bad, right?

Seems pilots look at regionals the way CFIIs look at instructing...
 
Although some regionals have a 401(k), there is no pension or retirement that I know of. And since your salary isn't as high as major airline pilots, you don't have $$$ to dump into that 401(k).
 
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As a captain you get relatively good pay and benefits aren't that bad, right?

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Relative to what? Working a cash register? Yeah. Carrying responsibility for millions of dollars worth of aircraft and the lives of up to as many as 90 passengers? Nah, not really. Most pax would get off the airplane if they knew their FO made just slightly more than minimum wage.
 
Hey now. Most of the regionals (with jets) are topping out above 100k. 100k here 100k there, pretty soon you're talking about some real money!

Inflation aside, six figures is still pretty darn good for being a flying bus driver.

What other "job" is going to let you do that and have 10-12 days off a month minimum?

Now don't jump on me here. I know all the negatives and the "dark side" too. You've all seen my posts on that before.
 
What about the oppourtunity to fly Europe, Asia, South America etc? Seeing more of the world was a part of what finally inspired me to leave Eagle and go to AA.
 
I thought that's what ID-90s and over the counter agreements were for?
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If ya work for SWA, you'd still be relying on another carrier to go int'l. And honestly, I'm not even sure if SWA pilots get a pension or not. I know the rampers, CSAs, ops, etc don't. They still have their 401K and hella profit sharing, though.
 
My perspective is that if I was stuck flying short routes domestically the rest of my career, I'd look elsewhere. I've got enormous domestic ops burn out.

And JT, six figures ain't what you think it is. It's median middle class, an average house in the burbs and maybe a car payment, but that's about it. But it's "a lot more" if you do the standard US-style of running up credit card debt and falling for the zero interest-zero down tomfoolery so many of us do.
 
Doug I have to disagree with you. The Bureau of Labor and Statistics shows the median family income around 32k right now.

ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/lf/aat37.txt

In 2003 the average person made $620/week.

Doug you are just going to have to accept the fact that you are definitely upper middle class.

Any one making more than 50k is upper middle class. You can live well if you stay out of debt at that rate.

Another fact - there are no poor people living in southern california! (at least not homeowners anyway.)
 
A US national median income means little to nothing about comparative lifestyles. You have to take into account cost of living. $50k living in NY City is not going to go anywhere near as far as $50k living in the mountains of WV.

Ray
 
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Doug I have to disagree with you. The Bureau of Labor and Statistics shows the median family income around 32k right now.

...

Another fact - there are no poor people living in southern california! (at least not homeowners anyway.)

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Yet another fact - there are no homeowners in southern california making anywhere close to median family income--but there are PLENTY of them who live completely hand-to-mouth because of their housing expense. Being "house poor" is a way of life here. In fact, there are very few places anymore where a family with a gross annual income of $32k can afford to buy a house. A second income is a necessity for most people. Even making $120k/yr in SF during the dot com boom, I couldn't afford a house there.

Doug, he's right...you're upper middle class--and Kristie's wheels would tend to put you over the top of that hurdle. Most people your age are still on their starter homes. It may not feel like it sometimes, but you're doing well, my brotha.
 
So, how is 'class' determined? I'm not trying to be sarcastic or anything here, I'm just curious if lower, lower-middle, middle, upper-middle, upper classes are decided on family income #s or what. Is locality taken into account? With our income #s, I guess it's kind of high, but when I look at our house & vehicles & lifestyle, I really consider us to just be middle class. The folks across the road in Inverness, in their 4000 sq/ft mansions, I consider them to be upper-middle. With upper class being the type who can afford to buy a house in Lincoln Park!
I have no business/economic education, so I'm just basing my opinon of class on what I see around me, and what I grew up around. Does the government or someone actually have 'class' guildlines?
 
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Another fact - there are no poor people living in southern california! (at least not homeowners anyway.)

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That's why I had to live with my parents when I was based in San Diego.
 
I think that something that a lot of people outside of the regionals fail to realize is that there are a ton of guys that are at the regionals for life for various reasons. When I was instructing I had the false impression that everyone used the regionals as a stepping stone to the majors. I assumed that it was just part of the natural progression that a guy would put his time in at a regional and almost automatically move up to a major.

Now that I've been at a regional for a few years, I realize that lots of guys just stop at the regionals and never move up or even want to. I don't know that I agree with these decisions, but I certainly understand why some guys end up in such a spot. In the last three weeks, I've seen two captains reach 60 and retire. I used to think that was unheard of at the regionals.

We have quite a few military guys that came on during the early 90's when hiring was bad. They have good Air Force pension and make about 80-90 grand at the airline and are perfectly content.

A lot of guys are from the area that they are based and have no desire to move and will not commute even for a major. They make pretty good money 60-70 grand on the t-props and 80-100 grand on the jets or training department. They are very senior and pretty much pick their trips, days off, and vacation.

Many guys, especially these days, enjoy the job security that goes along with being in the top 25% of a seniority list and feel that the benefits of the majors do not outweigh that security. We have hired many furloughed mainline guys that claim that they may not go back to their majors if they are in the top 50% here and in the left seat of the jet. I don't know that I believe them, but it's what many say.

Some guys fear going through training again. Some guys were simply unable to get hired.

I don't agree with many of the reasons for staying at a regional and I believe that even the junior guys at a major enjoy a better QOL and pay than even the most senior guys at a regional. Having said that, I can see why and how guys get complacent and really lose any or simply have no desire to go through interviewing, training, and being on probation all over again. I can fully understand how guys in their forties (I'm not that far away) with a mortgage, a few kids, non working spouse, etc. fear the risks involved in making the leap to a major. Plus, it is a big pay cut for the first couple of years. The pay cut more than pays off in the long term, but many of us live pay check to pay check and couldn't afford it--others couldn't afford not to.

I think that if you have not made the move to a major by age 45 and you're making enough to live on and retire on, you should probably stay put.
 
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So, how is 'class' determined? I'm not trying to be sarcastic or anything here, I'm just curious if lower, lower-middle, middle, upper-middle, upper classes are decided on family income #s or what.

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Socioeconomic Status: A broad social-class ranking based on occupational status, family prestige, educational attainment, and earned income.

http://www.socialclass.org/
http://www.auburn.edu/~peteeta/solect13/sld001.htm
http://www.trentu.ca/academic/sociology/faculty/klassen/unders1/index.htm
http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/students/earlycld/ea7lk5.htm
 
I'm not a big "class" person, but it used to crack me up when my mom described us as "lower middle class."

My dad was a supreme court judge for NY and we also owned two large printing companies. Somehow that doesn't seem to be "lower middle class" to me.

Maybe she was just talking about the way I act?
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Doug I have to disagree with you. The Bureau of Labor and Statistics shows the median family income around 32k right now.

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That fine John, but considering $32G's a year is ghetto in most cities, I'm not going to support the notion that the median is "OK" because it isn't. You cannot save for retirement, you have to probably drag along a lot of credit card debt and heavens to betsy, if anyone got sick, you're going to lose your home.
 
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Doug, he's right...you're upper middle class--and Kristie's wheels would tend to put you over the top of that hurdle. Most people your age are still on their starter homes. It may not feel like it sometimes, but you're doing well, my brotha.

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I'm doing well, but I'm probably doing on par when you look at the numbers to my parents who both worked.

My father had three houses (rented out two), four motorcycles, several cars and property back in Alabama, and did that all on about a combined gross income (between mom and dad) of about $65K... And that was in the mid 1980's. And that's raising three kids and helping put one (me) through college. And we were a middle class family. Neither went to college and both were blue collar.

We pretty much have a car and a house and that's about it. We don't have any credit card debt, pay taxes and can't see how people are able to raise kids in the burbs with much less. So besides the shiney BMW Kristie drives (well, I'm driving a beat to hell 91 pontiac), when you compare my families combined gross income in the 80's to what I make now, actually I have a lower standard of living, but live in a nicer neighborhood.

Most of the weekend trips we take is because we're not paying anything for non-revenue travel and the money that we'd spend on diapers, formula and sippy-cups go toward travel expenses.

If you adjust my parents combined income for 2004 dollars, you'll probably discover that it's not a lot different between what Kristie and I earn in 2004 and what my dad (while alive) and my mom earned in the 80's -- and we're both, from what I consider, fairly educated people.

There's perception and then there's reality.
 
Its all about how you live. Its not how much money you make but how you apply that money to work for you.
If you spend more than you make then yes you are not smart and broke all of the time. But if you live within your means you CAN save for retirement and NOT have debt. Thats the only way it works. 32 a year is by far better than Ghetto.
 
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