Regional airline pilots

Buckeye757

Buckeye757

Well-Known Member
Seeing as how most major airlines use some sort of subsiderary for their regional operations (i.e. Delta with Chataqua and Pinnacle with North West/United). Are the pilots for the regionals employees for the smaller airline or the larger one? If the pilot only works for Pinnacle for instance can he fly both United Express and North West Airlink in the same day?
 
Pinnacle only flies for Northwest.

I am an employee for Pinnacle.... There's no flow through agreement or anything to mainline either.
 
You asked if we are pilots for "the larger one or smaller one."

Well.....in general regional pilots are employees of the regional airline, that is to say the smaller one. There are some regionals owned by a parent company ie American Eagle (owned by AMR) and ASA/Comair which are owned by Delta. I think in the ASA/Comair case the two companies are run fairly independently of Delta and of each other. Expressjet (Continental Express) is partially owned by Continental, we are definetly integrated with them but are a separate company.
 
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Are the pilots for the regionals employees for the smaller airline or the larger one?

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Even if the airline is a wholly owned subsidiary, they work for the 'smaller' carrier only. While Eagle is owned by AMR, as is American, their pilots are Eagle pilots only.

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If the pilot only works for Pinnacle for instance can he fly both United Express and North West Airlink in the same day?

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Skywest flies both as Delta Connection and United Express. My roomie is a SKW F/A and from her experience the trip sequences don't really over lap mixing Connection & Express. Maybe one of the SKW people can elaborate...
 
We work for the regional airline. Although some regional pilots have an inferiority complex and will claim they work for the major. That is, until they realize they are talking to or being overheard by a major pilot.

As for flying different codeshares, it's possible (at least at CHQ). From my so far limited experience, each trip pairing will have us flying for one carrier only. However, If I were to fly one pairing today and a different one tommorow, I could be flying US Air express today and Delta Connection tommorow.
 
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Are the pilots for the regionals employees for the smaller airline or the larger one? If the pilot only works for Pinnacle for instance can he fly both United Express and North West Airlink in the same day?

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Well you have bad info about Pinnacle but the answer to your question is yes for Mesa.

I had one day where I flew USAirways Express in the morning, did an America West Express flight in the afternoon, and finished with a repo for Midwest Express Connection.
 
so if someone works for Pinnacle, do they have a greater chance of getting a job with NWA than somebody on the street? Or is Pinnacle or any of the other regionals not as involved with the main airline than I think?
 
Speaking of AMR, why is it that an Eagle pilot can't ride the jumpseat of a mainline jet....or has that changed?
 
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Speaking of AMR, why is it that an Eagle pilot can't ride the jumpseat of a mainline jet....or has that changed?

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Cause they've lost that lovin' feelin'
 
Flying the RJ for Skywest, we fly for both United Express and Delta Connection- often times in the same trip. I've flown Delta Connection into a city, spent the night, then take a United Express airplane out in the morning. I've even flown both in the same day (flew DC into SFO one day and made the looong walk to the UE remote terminal for the next flight).

Not positive about the wholly-owned express carriers, but we got no preferential hiring or advantage to work at our major partners. We do get a higher priority when jumpseating and non-revving (still below mainline and wholly-own's).
 
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and finished with a repo for Midwest Express Connection.

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Mesa was conducting Skyway flying after 96?
 
Thanks guys for the info. I've just always wondered about this on my Chataqua flights between CVG and CMH. I also wasn't aware that Pinnacle flew only for North West.
 
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Speaking of AMR, why is it that an Eagle pilot can't ride the jumpseat of a mainline jet....or has that changed?

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It's changed.

The problem with NOT getting a jumpseat for AE pilots is that anythime there is a seat in the cabin, they ding us the non-rev charge. (No free flights till 5 yr seniority). It's ridiculous it's next to impossible to fly for 'free' on my own airline, yet any other interline j/s can fly for free on the same flight. It was $550 in charges last year to go the 115 miles to work. Thanks to Skywest, it was not closer to $1,000!

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so if someone works for Pinnacle, do they have a greater chance of getting a job with NWA than somebody on the street? Or is Pinnacle or any of the other regionals not as involved with the main airline than I think?

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Funny, I have heard from some that a sure way NOT to get hired at the mainline is to fly for their regional!
Smilecrunch.gif
(Just look at the AE No-thru. 50% of 2,000 is not 126.) It will be a LOOOONG time before any United Express, Northwest Airlink or any regional partner pilot needs to worry about that anyway.....
 
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and finished with a repo for Midwest Express Connection.

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Mesa was conducting Skyway flying after 96?

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That's a Negative Ghost Rider.

All the flying was done out of MCI - not any of the Skyway flying. It was basically a codeshare with Air Midwest. It was started in 1998. The planes were in USAirways Express colors, and had their flight #'s.
 
Ahh!

"Air Midwest" for USAiways Express

I thought you meant "Midwest Express".
 
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Ahh!

"Air Midwest" for USAiways Express

I thought you meant "Midwest Express".

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Well I did - Air Midwest was (and may still be) doing a code share with ME out of MCI. We called it "Mini-ME."
 
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Well you have bad info about Pinnacle but the answer to your question is yes for Mesa.

I had one day where I flew USAirways Express in the morning, did an America West Express flight in the afternoon, and finished with a repo for Midwest Express Connection.

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Now I gotta ding you John. I just created a thread on Mesa Lounge asking if your assigned to fly for HP express or UA,US express if in a given day you could fly for any of Mesa's other two express carriers.
Raysaloman said negatory. Said that if your assigned to HP express for example you can only bid HP EXP lines.
But he mentioned that if for example (which they do) you you wanted to start flying on the United or US AIRWAYS side of the biz you could if you were flying a CRJ cause both express carriers operate the type.
I know that you no longer fly for Mesa so I'm figuring that you could have done that back when you worked for ole JO but guess stuff done changed!

-matthew
 
At Continental Express, we are employed by Expressjet, not mainline, even though Continental owns (or controls the leases) on all two hundred seventy-some-odd of our planes.

Continental could hypothetically get rid of us in 2007 when our contract expires, and the pilot group would be SOL since there would be no planes to fly. Can't strike out on our own like ACA/indy.

We used to have a flow through with mainline, but no longer. Rumor has it that another one is in the works with a 4:1 flowback:flowthrough ratio. That could be disasterous for us were CAL to come on hard(er) times. It's all up to mainline at this point.
 
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