CommutAir Direct Entry Captain

E

ebolt

New Member
Good Morning!

I just wanted to get everyone's thoughts on becoming a direct entry captain at Commutair. I am currently a captain at Cape Air and have the qualifying hours to get into the left seat at UCA. I have had my eye on a corporate job, but if that doesn't work out, I was thinking about taking the big bonus and heading to Commutair. It's also nice because I live in CT and commuting would be easy to EWR (by car) and IAD (by jumpseat).

Had anyone here done a DEC position or have any thoughts on it?

Thanks!
 
The issue with direct captain positions is that every time someone hired before you upgrades, you get pushed down the seniority list. You will have the worst schedule and quality of life on a consistent basis. Your only hope is that they continue to hire DEC after you, and at a good rate.
 
I would only do DEC at an airline with actual growth. Not sure where that is currently.

Also, were you in the ATR at Cape Air? I don't think time in a C402 counts. Been a while since I looked up the regs.
 
There are a lot of operational differences in 121 compared to Cape Air. I would be very uncomfortable going straight to the left seat of a 145 from 9K unless you’ve already got a bunch of turbojet and/or 121 time.
 
Maurus said:
I would only do DEC at an airline with actual growth. Not sure where that is currently.

Also, were you in the ATR at Cape Air? I don't think time in a C402 counts. Been a while since I looked up the regs.
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Cape Air 402 time counts. We had guys at Endeavor fly like 200 hours in the right seat and upgrade because their time at Cape Air counted.
 
ebolt said:
Good Morning!

I just wanted to get everyone's thoughts on becoming a direct entry captain at Commutair. I am currently a captain at Cape Air and have the qualifying hours to get into the left seat at UCA. I have had my eye on a corporate job, but if that doesn't work out, I was thinking about taking the big bonus and heading to Commutair. It's also nice because I live in CT and commuting would be easy to EWR (by car) and IAD (by jumpseat).

Had anyone here done a DEC position or have any thoughts on it?

Thanks!
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Don't most of y'all go to JetBlue?
 
ebolt said:
Good Morning!

I just wanted to get everyone's thoughts on becoming a direct entry captain at Commutair. I am currently a captain at Cape Air and have the qualifying hours to get into the left seat at UCA. I have had my eye on a corporate job, but if that doesn't work out, I was thinking about taking the big bonus and heading to Commutair. It's also nice because I live in CT and commuting would be easy to EWR (by car) and IAD (by jumpseat).

Had anyone here done a DEC position or have any thoughts on it?

Thanks!
Click to expand...
Just make sure, its actually a DEC position. When they were selling this crap to me years ago you went in as an FO and upgraded because no one had the time to be a captain. If youre walking in day one as a captain with captain pay fine.

Also,youll never get off reserve and reserve sucks even if you live in base. If ur single, move in base and just deal with it. DEC aint for everyone.
 
jynxyjoe said:
I know this is sacrilegious and ill get shouted down, but edv got a lot of cape air guys before you got a contract because they made more at edv quicker. *Shrug* whole upgrade classes sometimes.
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Ain't gonna hurt my feelings. I didn't even apply until ALPA was on property.
 
Also as a DEC at a junior base, no one cares 6 months from now when DEC figures out how screwed his schedule is. No one. May not be the original poster, may end up being his/her classmates, but no one you fly with or who takes your calls cares how bad it is. In fact FOs and coworkers will pretend to care to get you to talk about it so they can tell stories later.

You signed up to be JMF for 2-4 years, knowing your only hope is they hire 60 JMF DEC's under you.
 
What @CoffeeIcePapers said is something to think about, especially considering CommutAir has some of the worst reserve rules in the industry. We have been upgrading new hires immediately for a while and they have gained seniority rapidly- this month it looks like the most junior captain to get a line was hired in May 2019. Hopefully that will continue but getting off reserve so quickly as a street captain is unusual so it probably won't last. It seems like ending up on reserve for many years is the much more typical street captain experience. When I was hired in late 2016 there were plenty of instant upgrades as well, but most of these captains got downgraded in late 2017 when we phased out the Dash 8.

CommutAir is still growing, our fleet size is in the upper 30s and we are set to grow to 61. However so far the growth has been much slower than management claimed so we probably won't reach 61 for a few more years.

In general, if you decide to go to a regional there are probably better choices than CommutAir. Our captains are paid the least out of the whole regional industry. Our contract is substandard with awful work rules, and while we are in contract negotiations now, I doubt our next contract will be significantly better. We have an exclusive agreement with United so all our eggs are in one basket and they could "Comair" us at any time. If you live in Connecticut it probably wouldn't be too much harder to get to LGA or JFK, so Envoy may be a better choice if you can get hired there, especially with the flow to American. Endeavor would also be a good choice since they pay significantly more. Even Republic would be a better option, as they pay more, fly for 3 different mainline partners (so less risk of getting "Comaired") and have an all 68-76 seater fleet (lower costs than 50-seat jets so less risk of being parked when oil is expensive).

milleR said:
There are a lot of operational differences in 121 compared to Cape Air. I would be very uncomfortable going straight to the left seat of a 145 from 9K unless you’ve already got a bunch of turbojet and/or 121 time.
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I would be very wary of this as well. I'm not aware of anyone who has upgraded immediately coming from an operation like 9K- most whom I have talked to came from other regionals or from ACMI carriers. Things have gotten a lot better but a few years ago there were significant issues with our training, and people were washing out left and right. Upgrading into a new type at a new company seems very intimidating to me and it amazes me that so many people do it successfully- it seems even more mind-boggling if it's your first jet after flying pistons.

jynxyjoe said:
Just make sure, its actually a DEC position. When they were selling this crap to me years ago you went in as an FO and upgraded because no one had the time to be a captain. If youre walking in day one as a captain with captain pay fine.

Also,youll never get off reserve and reserve sucks even if you live in base. If ur single, move in base and just deal with it. DEC aint for everyone.
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This is something else to consider- there are no Direct Entry Captains at CommutAir. Notice how I always say "instant" or "immediate" upgrades, because that's what it is. You are not guaranteed a Captain slot, but you will be awarded Upgrade during initial training if you qualify and there are slots available. We have had people upgrade instantly pretty much every class going back to the end of 2018. That looks like it will continue for now, but it won't last forever and could certainly change at a moment's notice.
 
Another thing to consider is CommutAir also has Captain Qualified FOs. As a junior captain you may be a CQFO for up to a year, but for the last year or so most people have been CQFOs for a much shorter period if at all since movement has been so rapid. The left seat seems to be perpetually short-staffed here so even if you are a CQFO you will probably rarely fly as an FO, but it's something you should be aware of.
 
ebolt said:
Good Morning!

I just wanted to get everyone's thoughts on becoming a direct entry captain at Commutair. I am currently a captain at Cape Air and have the qualifying hours to get into the left seat at UCA. I have had my eye on a corporate job, but if that doesn't work out, I was thinking about taking the big bonus and heading to Commutair. It's also nice because I live in CT and commuting would be easy to EWR (by car) and IAD (by jumpseat).

Had anyone here done a DEC position or have any thoughts on it?

Thanks!
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$100-grand after-tax (cap-gain) signing bonus or don't play that table. Bleed those execs! If they were as good as they think they are, they wouldn't be there.
 
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jynxyjoe said:
If youre walking in day one as a captain with captain pay fine.
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Oh and I forgot to mention, even if you are awarded Upgrade right off the bat, you will be on FO pay until you pass the Upgrade PC. Only after the checkride will you receive Captain pay. Of course as far as I know we don't have any significant delays in training right now, so that should be no more than two months or so after your class date.
 
A friend tells me DEC's don't exist, as previously mentioned by @Yakob and there's no contractual protections to keep you as a CA like @jynxyjoe implied. You'd have to gamble on continued consistent growth to keep flying in the left seat, else when the pendulum swings and FOs upgrade ahead of you, you'll be a CQFO flying in the right seat til you can legitimately hold CA flying. Bid CA reserve, get paid as CA, bid an FO line, get paid FO rates.

Mainline has stated that the only way to grow EWR was to upgauge the airframes since EWR is so congested; Gojet started flying the CRJ-5frankenstein on routes that used to be erjs, I'd expect that to continue with the recent announcement to convert 20 more CRJ5s. So prepare to not hold EWR if it shrinks, and think about commuting to IAD for years of reserve flying the right seat.

Contract is still being negotiated, could be a good place to be but I just wouldn't plan on walking in to a CA seat and keeping it.
Also going straight from a mostly single pilot piston twin into a jet may be a bit difficult without prior experience in 121 or jets as @milleR mentioned
 
Come to Skywest. spend a month or two getting comfortable in the right seat and they will upgrade you if you've got the minimums, and it'll be a 2-3 week course at that point.
We don't have a formal DEC program but we are so short of CRJ captains that the bid drains the eligible FOs every month. Yes you will be on reserve for a while but long term you'll have much better prospects than commutair. This is for CRJ DTW/ORD
 
RamRise said:
Come to Skywest. spend a month or two getting comfortable in the right seat and they will upgrade you if you've got the minimums, and it'll be a 2-3 week course at that point.
We don't have a formal DEC program but we are so short of CRJ captains that the bid drains the eligible FOs every month. Yes you will be on reserve for a while but long term you'll have much better prospects than commutair. This is for CRJ DTW/ORD
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Are they doing involuntary upgrades yet?
 
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