Recently, I have been hearing more and more of the following debate among some regional pilots: should I stay or should I go? With Delta, Continental, Northwest, and United all hiring now, but none of them dong particularly well (Continental aside, maybe), I am hearing more and more regional captains wavering on this decision. I think a lot of it, obviously, has to do with age: if you are under 35 it seems obvious to go, if you are over 50 why would you, but even more obviously it depends on one's personal situation. If you are at a relatively stable regional (opinions differ on whether or not one exists), making pretty decent money (I have flown with quite a few senior guys making 100k+), holding whatever line you want every month, maybe in the base you want (or live in), then why would you want to go to a major where you will be making 30k to start, on probation, on reserve, commuting somewhere new, etc.? Obviously someday (depending on your age), you will eventually make more money than you were, and a few years after that you may even make back the money that you lost during your first few years at that major, but is it worth it?
One of the other issues is where to go. This is nothing new in the airline industry, but it is difficult nonetheless: because of the seniority system (and believe me, I am not knocking the seniority system), whichever airline first offers you a job that you jump at, in all likelihood you are now married to that airline for life. In other words, once you start to build some seniority somewhere, you will not be able to just quit and switch jobs (like in a normal, non-airline-pilot career) without losing the investment that your time at that airline has come to represent. So where to go? Northwest or Delta, fresh out of bankrupcy, where management has screwed the pilots as bad as we know that they have? United, where the pilots feel equally screwed, and where multiple labor groups (pilots included) have contracts simultaneously running out in 2009 (at least that is the rumor I think I heard)? Would you really like to be on a picket line while on probation? Continental, where you may have to commute to Newark? NEWARK!?!
Anyway, this is just a little bit of what I've been hearing from captains I fly with and I wanted to get a feel for what other people are thinking about it. Obviously everyone has to make this decision for themselves, and we should all be so lucky as to have this decision to make. The funny thing is, I'm only a 13-month, 29-year-old regional FO, so I would jump at the chance to skip regional CA and go straight to major FO. And oddly enough, that may be realistic for me to do eventually (especially since I'm at Eagle and the upgrade time is what it is).
Enough rambling. Any thoughts?
One of the other issues is where to go. This is nothing new in the airline industry, but it is difficult nonetheless: because of the seniority system (and believe me, I am not knocking the seniority system), whichever airline first offers you a job that you jump at, in all likelihood you are now married to that airline for life. In other words, once you start to build some seniority somewhere, you will not be able to just quit and switch jobs (like in a normal, non-airline-pilot career) without losing the investment that your time at that airline has come to represent. So where to go? Northwest or Delta, fresh out of bankrupcy, where management has screwed the pilots as bad as we know that they have? United, where the pilots feel equally screwed, and where multiple labor groups (pilots included) have contracts simultaneously running out in 2009 (at least that is the rumor I think I heard)? Would you really like to be on a picket line while on probation? Continental, where you may have to commute to Newark? NEWARK!?!
Anyway, this is just a little bit of what I've been hearing from captains I fly with and I wanted to get a feel for what other people are thinking about it. Obviously everyone has to make this decision for themselves, and we should all be so lucky as to have this decision to make. The funny thing is, I'm only a 13-month, 29-year-old regional FO, so I would jump at the chance to skip regional CA and go straight to major FO. And oddly enough, that may be realistic for me to do eventually (especially since I'm at Eagle and the upgrade time is what it is).
Enough rambling. Any thoughts?
Unfortunately, without transoceanic time.........UPS doesn't want you at the moment.
