My understanding is that the current market is a buyer’s market and it’s not very difficult to get into these regionals given that you satisfy their requirements. After doing some research, it looks like Endeavor has the highest pay among the regionals if the figures on airlinecentral are correct. And most of them seem to offer similar packages like mainline flow, upgrade to captain at 1000 part 121 hours (given there are positions avail), CASS jumpseating, and similar pay and bonuses even. Why might someone choose other regionals over the one with the highest pay? (other than base locations) What exactly am I missing here?
I do realize it’s way too early to be thinking about this, but I’m just curious. At the end of the day, I’m happy with any job that gets me off the ground. I’m just intrigued by how things work in the industry.
Great question. It seems that domicile locations are usually the driving force for people applying to the airlines. Somebody living in the Pacific northwest might not be terribly interested in Endeavor because of the commute they would have to make. The other driving force is flow through agreements to the majors, like Piedmont to AA and so forth.
As Chris said location is the big one. Route network is another. Some Regionals fly to a relatively small number of airports, others fly everywhere which is attractive to many people. Fleet type is another. Finally there’s corporate culture and quality of life. When I was researching Regionals I spoke to many current pilots. While this is somewhat subjective, some airlines just have “happier” pilots who have great things to say about their company and say they’re treated well, others the complete opposite. That was the single biggest factor for me as I wanted to be a “happy” pilot
I’ve been listening to some great podcasts too and another thing to consider is the stability of the regional. Sure there is lots of movement right now but if something changes in the industry it’s a good idea to chose a place that you’ll be ok with staying at a little longer than you expected. Another aspect of the regional stability is whether or not they own their planes, are they getting more planes? Are they selling a third of their fleet? All of these things will affect the amount of flying that that pilots at that regional will receive.
