So which carriers are people leaving to go to Mesa?
Here's the thing:
One of our chief pilots allegedly stated in public recently that other regionals are engaged in "predatory hiring" from our airline. Specifically, Jet Blue and Skywest are stealing "our" pilots. Now Republic is offering a cash bonus of $2500 upon completion of training (supposedly).
Mesa's response -- double the Republic bonus, but with many, many, many strings attached. Details aren't listed on the bonus, but I guarantee you have to stick around a few years to get the full 5k. This is supposed to make Mesa more attractive than say, Skywest or Republic.
Mesa SHOULD HAVE asked "How do we keep what we have?" and "Why are 2-3 year fo's leaving to work for another regional?" Apparently the fact that other regionals have better pay, more days off (about 1 month more off just for reserves), don't carry the board/cot to work so they can sleep on the airplane, aren't constantly getting junior assigned, getting their awarded flying re-arranged constantly, non-commutable lines* with 6 days on/2 days off, etc. etc. . . . this never crossed their minds.
* as recently as 1 week ago, our CEO purportedly (I wasn't there so this might not be 100% accurate) gave a presentation stating that commutability was not the company's problem, and that "You chose to be a pilot" . . . therefore getting to work was your problem.
