A pilot from England joined the Army Guard over here and said that he had worked as a Blackhawk Crew Chief, then went to NW Airlink as FO. I asked him about the lifestyle with a lower US CRJ First Officer salary compared to a higher salary in England with the much higher taxes. His company sent some senior pilots to Embry Riddle in a recruitment campaign. I spoke with them.
The Englishman told me that you can survive better in the US, at least in a lower cost region such as a smaller city in the south, because of the much lower taxes and cost of living. This surprised me.
CruiseClimb: How about the problem of some regional airline new-hires who have less than the minimum PIC hours, who theoretically will never be able to upgrade to Captain? The core problem, based upon what a Check Airman told me, with attracting experienced pilots is that some regionals pay nothing during training-not even per diem for meals etc. They expect the applicant to live with Mom and Dad, or have a girlfriend supply food, hotel and gasoline money. Wait until they hear about the salary, whereby you will qualify for foodstamps.
The company may hire you, but whether you have enough instrument experience to successfully finish training, makes no difference at all to the company
. They want you as cheaply as possible-nothing else. And it works every week.
A furloughed airline guy working as Instructor at a regional was introduced to me and described a common, but most unfortunate situation. He told me that the Gulfstream program gladly took a guy's money and let him later fly the B-1900. This came as a cruel surprise when he was a new-hire at another company: the lack of actual instrument flying crippled his chances to finish CRJ training.
PIC hours? Will some new-hires be forced to remain forever in the right seat?
The solution is that the FAA will soon, or has already lowered the PIC hour requirement to enable First Officers to later upgrade to Captain after 2500 hours or more. Maybe 10 SIC hours equal 1 hour of PIC?
PS: This is May 28. That company's Chief Pilot reportedly quit recently over this PIC/SIC concept.