What I meant to ask is why do people get stuck at the commuters and never make it to the majors. Is it no college degree, violations, poor interview/networking skills?
Your profile says you gained your flight experience through civilian means. Did you ever care to ask your captains why he or she was still there. I think "stuck" implies that someone wanted to leave the "commuters," and couldn't. I can't speak from personal experience, but some of the captains I fly with are perfectly happy with 15+ years of serniority at my airline. Why give up a $90,000 a year job where you choose your schedule, to fly for another airline that might force you to move/commute. Most of the pilots I talk with at my company that want to move on will; the ones that want to stay will.
Sometimes the issue is quality of life. It can be very sweet at a regional with seniority. My neighbor has seniority at a regional.
He is home most nights, gets most of the important holidays off and has the pick of the bids. Granted, he only pulls in maybe 75-85k a year as a pilot, but in his off hours he is a real estate developer. I would venture to say that his real estate income is triple his flying income. Plus, with the time off, he uses it to do a lot of traveling.
For some people the flying is not the end result. It's a fun thing to get paid to do. I've done well on my investments but not well enough to rent an Airbus A320 for the 80 or so hours a month that I would like to fly. Until then, my employer can foot the bill.
I guess also you can look at when a person got on with a commuter "regoinal".
It may have been they got hired during an economic down turn, ie; no jobs available. And then the next thing they know is that they have alot of seniority and there quality of life is not that bad after the economy gets back on its feet say 6-10 years later.
At my airline there are people on the verge of being lifers, what I mean is that they are about to be in a position to where they will have to give up alot to move on to something else. I would guess that time would be around 5 to 6 plus years at any given company.
I think a good way to not being a lifer at a place you would rather not be is after you gain the experience neccesary to move on, you just bite the bullet and give up your seniority and pay early on so you don't get stuck.
I plan to do just that, stay long enough to get the experience and then see what happens, not saying I won't be loyal during my years of service, but I tend to climb the ladder instead of just being content.
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