Regional Airline Pilots

[pilotx86]

Hello all. I was wondering whether there are regional airline pilots that are able to come home more frequently than the major airline pilots. For example, they can fly all day, come home at night, or fly all day and night, layover, then come home the next evening. Is that the case with regional airline pilots? Also, does anyone have or know about the average salary for a regional airline pilot, basically how much they make on average per year? Thanks a lot!

[davetheflyer]

I know a couple of regional pilots that fly almost on a 9-5 schedule.

I think that Doug has regional average salaries posted on the website.

[FlyChicaga]

Depends on where you go. Like at SkyWest, at some domiciles you will be home every night (all locals). Other domiciles, you'll have layovers (in 2, 3, and 4 day trips). At our company, we do all layovers (there are exceptions). Most are 3 day trips. Then there are standups, where your show time is around 6:00 pm, fly three legs, overnight for 5 hours, then fly one leg back. End of story. You do this for the whole month, with days off.

At the regionals expect around 10-12 days off. Most probably off is 15. At the majors (Doug you can probably give more info on this) around 11-12 days off to start (depending on what major), then can get up to 20-22 days off a month! That's international captain or senior domestic though.

Some majors like Southwest operate on a "regional" type of schedule... you'll have less days off even with higher seniority (to a point). Then there are places like ATA which have lines (charter lines) that last 8 days to three weeks. Normally only bachelors/bachelorettes do those ones. I don't expect to see them around too much longer, but you never know. I wouldn't mind doing one of those trips once or twice... any more than that, I'm not gonna jump on that opportunity. [img]images/icons/crazy.gif[/img]

[pilotx86]

Thank you folks...you've been a great help!!!

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Hey Windy City,
I had a question. I am into eating right and lifting weights, etc., I haven't read anything on any of these sites about pilot's opportunity to work out while on the road, etc. Do any of the air terminals or hotels have gyms and do you have the opportunity to eat anything healthy. I would like to thank you in advance for your reply.

[FlyChicaga]

It depends. Some hotels do have workout rooms. Others do not. Sometimes even if they do, your overnight is really too short to even make use of them. As for eating right, it is VERY difficult. When you have a 30 minute turn at an outstation, you just kinda grab what you can. On overnights, the best thing I would say is get healthly foods whenever you can, and avoid activities that would create a large amount of weight gain (like excess drinking! [img]images/icons/laugh.gif[/img] ).

Hope that helped a bit!

[MQAAord]

The only way to eat right while on the road is to take your own food with you. It's kind of a pain to spend the time the night before a trip cutting up carrots and making sandwichs, but after a 7-leg 16-hour day with 30 minute turns you'll never be so happy to have a cold turkey sandwich. You can buy cheap small soft-side coolers (like a 6-pack size) and use plastic grocery bags to hold ice (always double-bag, you can replace ice from the a/c galley or hotel ice machines). I started carrying my own food when I flew for Eagle in ORD, and I was never hungry, ate better food, and even lost some weight! Also an added bonus, it's a lot cheaper than airport/hotel food! As for working out, you already carry the best piece of workout equipment with you everyday, your kit bag! It weighs *a lot* and you can use it for curls, adding or removing weight (jepps), and put it on your feet to do ab crunches. Carry a pair of track shoes, and you can run up and down the less-traveled stairwells at the hotels.