How about $19/hour and no union for starters? Stick that in your pipe and smoke it!
You have to look at the big picture when it comes to pay my friend. Most people dont go to regionals to work forever or never to upgrade so if you look at it as a function of total pay and career advancement......
Pay rates from airlinepilotcentral.com
Comapare AWAC (high paid right?) to SkyWest (low paid)
Assuming a newhire would upgrade at 24 months at SkyWest and 36 months at AWAC. We all know SkyWest upgrade is lower than that and falling and honestly AWAC upgrade is never at its current rate but to be optimistic and fair:
Total cumulative pay after year 1 (1000 credit no perdiem, SkyWest perdiem is higher than AWAC though) both figured using CR2 numbers.
AWAC = 24000
SkyWest = 19000
After 2nd year (1st + 2nd year)
AWAC = 59000
Skywest = 54000
after 3rd year (upgraded at SkyWest now, not at AWAC)
AWAC = 96000
SkyWest = 114000
After 4th year (both captains now)
AWAC = 159000
SkyWest = 167000
As a former AWAC pilot and a current SkyWest pilot I can tell you from my personal experience it would be much easier to make even more money at SkyWest if you wanted to work overtime. The company is always advertising 1.5X pay over time and voluntary reserve for those wishing to make the extra dollars. I will also point out when I was an AWAC line holder I nearly always had min days off for the month. As a SkyWest line holder I have never had less than 14 days off and my best has been 16 off straight PBS award. So even though AWAC has a better min days off policy in practice I end up with more now.
So in 4 years a new hire has made more money at the low paid regional and earned more PIC on his way to wherever he/she wants to go next. As far as union is concerned, it will come to vote. If the people of SkyWest feel there is a need for ALPA on property then ALPA will be on property. <--- see that, its a period! if you dont work at SkyWest quit debating if its best for those who do work there.
This post was not intended to bash AWAC. I am just showing a simple pay comparison of a so called good regional to a so called bad regional, that I have happened to work at both.