How to become a regional airline pilot ?
- Thread starter Dave Hess
- Start date
ERAU is very expensive if you can’t find a pilot job afterwards.
Always thought they were a overnight outfit like Penn Foster or ICS..
I did some classes with them years ago.
MolaKule
Staff member
You're highly misinformed.
You missed the info in post #3.
@Dave Hess Getting a degree helps if you cannot find a pilot's job right away.
https://erau.edu/hub-spoke/stories/how-to-become-a-pilot
https://erau.edu/degrees
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ERAU is fine for many and I have a BS in Aeronautics from them, but I earned it through their worldwide/extended campus system which has branches at many military bases as well as online options. I completed it while I was working as a regional pilot many years ago. You can save a lot of money if you do your flight training elsewhere and just do your academics through ERAU.
A bachelor’s degree like ERAU or other aviation universities offer (UND, UVU, LeToreneau, LaTech, Purdue, etc) isn’t typically needed for a regional pilot job, but for a legacy/major it often is. If you already have a Bachelor’s then obviously none of them make too much sense vs. a local flight school, academy, or military.
Probably the biggest assets of going to a University for flight training (or the military) are the networking connections you will make because you will usually need a few recommendations to get any job in aviation. I used small local flight schools and struggled a bit in that regard as a consequence. It’s tough if you don’t know anyone. You also get lower minimum hours for regional airline hiring eligibility from university programs in many cases.
A bachelor’s degree like ERAU or other aviation universities offer (UND, UVU, LeToreneau, LaTech, Purdue, etc) isn’t typically needed for a regional pilot job, but for a legacy/major it often is. If you already have a Bachelor’s then obviously none of them make too much sense vs. a local flight school, academy, or military.
Probably the biggest assets of going to a University for flight training (or the military) are the networking connections you will make because you will usually need a few recommendations to get any job in aviation. I used small local flight schools and struggled a bit in that regard as a consequence. It’s tough if you don’t know anyone. You also get lower minimum hours for regional airline hiring eligibility from university programs in many cases.
I quoted the post, how could i have missed it?
Didn't say I wasn't then, was simply a statement.
They were linked up with the education office on base and was a couple basic classes I did online ~20 years ago for an Associates that I've never needed... least to this point.
I never looked into them, just was what I needed for the degree. Could have been Ron McDonald's clown school, didn't matter to me at the time.
Actually the Penn Foster degrees I have ended up being more useful, and the 6 week CDL school absolutely more useful... it's gotten me several decent jobs.
I did all my pilot training through a “local” FBO/flight school. Nothing wrong with ERAU and other academies, but they can be pricey.
At the end of it all, no matter where you train, the certificates are exactly the same, the study books/materials are generally the same, the tests are the same, the lesson plans are generally the same, etc.
If you’re trying to get a bachelor’s degree at the same time, that kinda changes things. But if you just wanna fly, I don’t see the need for paying extra for a big-name school.
I’d shop around for rental prices per hour and run the numbers. Sticking with schools that have maybe 10 trainer planes or more is probably best. Some schools are so small that if just one plane is down for long-term maintenance it can get challenging to stay on the schedule.
I did all my training from early 2000 to mid 2002. I think I spent around $32,000 - $35,000. Private Pilot all the way to MEI (Multi Engine Instructor). Crappy, but cheap old Cessna 172s built in the 1970s and early 1980s.
The school I trained at hired me as an instructor.
Hired at a regional with about 1,300 hours (before the 1,500 hr rule). Got furloughed after a year, and went back to my flight school and spent maybe $3,000 more and got my ATP certificate. Then recalled to my airline shortly thereafter.
Long-story-short, there’s many routes, schools, time building methods to make it happen. None are clear-cut the “right” way to do it.
At the end of it all, no matter where you train, the certificates are exactly the same, the study books/materials are generally the same, the tests are the same, the lesson plans are generally the same, etc.
If you’re trying to get a bachelor’s degree at the same time, that kinda changes things. But if you just wanna fly, I don’t see the need for paying extra for a big-name school.
I’d shop around for rental prices per hour and run the numbers. Sticking with schools that have maybe 10 trainer planes or more is probably best. Some schools are so small that if just one plane is down for long-term maintenance it can get challenging to stay on the schedule.
I did all my training from early 2000 to mid 2002. I think I spent around $32,000 - $35,000. Private Pilot all the way to MEI (Multi Engine Instructor). Crappy, but cheap old Cessna 172s built in the 1970s and early 1980s.
The school I trained at hired me as an instructor.
Hired at a regional with about 1,300 hours (before the 1,500 hr rule). Got furloughed after a year, and went back to my flight school and spent maybe $3,000 more and got my ATP certificate. Then recalled to my airline shortly thereafter.
Long-story-short, there’s many routes, schools, time building methods to make it happen. None are clear-cut the “right” way to do it.
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What type aircraft did you fly as a regional pilot ?
EMB-145 for 7 years.
I saw a video a few days ago that a pilot operating the big boy planes like for AK Air, Delta, etc makes $300k+... and can only fly like 100hrs a month?
Had no idea it was that lucrative.
I worked over 3000hrs last year, alot of overtime, barely hit 6 figures
Had no idea it was that lucrative.
I worked over 3000hrs last year, alot of overtime, barely hit 6 figures
That is a complete and utter misrepresentation.
It’s not that simple.
Read up.
Thread 'Pilot Compensation Up To $590,000 Per Year'
https://bobistheoilguy.com/forums/threads/pilot-compensation-up-to-590-000-per-year.366282/
If you want to earn what I do, just get a degree in engineering or physics, spend a dozen or so years in the military, then wait 15 years until you upgrade. Reckon about 30 years to get to the top.
And it will last until you’re 65. Mandatory retirement age.
I am working when I plan the flight, I am working when I talk to passengers, and I am working before we leave the gate. But I am not getting paid. I’m only getting paid when the jet is off the gate, I don’t get paid on the layover.
I spend more days each month than you at work and each of them is away from home.
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So why don’t you become an airline pilot, seriously?
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Well stated. Not to mention being held hostage in Chinese quarantine facilities whenever the geopolitical apple cart gets overturned ala 2020.
The availability of “overtime”, which is usually needed to get into those 400k+ numbers for most legacy airline captains is highly cyclical as well.
One can only really count on monthly guarantee, so for the layman, hourly rate x 900 = yearly gross pay for most. One would normally spend about 3500 hours at work/away from home to get that though. The pay clock only runs while the airplane is off the parking stand.
I'm guessing you are not the type to just bid long-call, but I assume you are also at a point in seniority where you could minimize your work days if you wanted to. Your participation in the training side of course is a choice that most don't make either.
Just have an "AS" degree, also certificates in auto and diesel tech. And did ~12 years in the military. Feb 2001- Apr 2013. Got hurt, Obama's force shaping forced a medical separation as a disabled vet.
I'm "home" about 5 months total a year. Either gone for 3 weeks, home for 3 or gone 4 weeks and home for 2, depending on time of year. And I work another job during that time. All 12hr days, 7 days a week.
Anyhow wasn't a measuring contest, I was just surprised how much a pilot makes.
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Why would a simple statement from me saying I learned what pilots are making infer that I'm interested?
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In Canada, you can get on with a major airline with just high school ( I have just HS ) and be a narrow body CA in about 3 hears from date of hire and WB in another 7 ( 10 years total ) at the current progression ( which has lasted several years now ) but no guarantee it will be the same as aviation is very unpredictable.
Don’t get into flying based on thinking you will be progressing fast forever but it’s not as slow as it used to be and unpredictable how long the boom will last.
We just had a NB CA quit and go to United , he thinks he will progress fast and have a better career and pay versus Canada or else he wouldn’t quit as a CA and be willing to start at the bottom with another major U.S airline.
Don’t get into flying based on thinking you will be progressing fast forever but it’s not as slow as it used to be and unpredictable how long the boom will last.
We just had a NB CA quit and go to United , he thinks he will progress fast and have a better career and pay versus Canada or else he wouldn’t quit as a CA and be willing to start at the bottom with another major U.S airline.
That’s the part that is killing me on schedule - working 18 days every other month in Denver and commuting to/from. The commute adds a day to each work “block” and in June, the schedule was atrocious - I was assigned 18 days, but with several single days off in the middle of my work blocks, so, I ended up spending 25 straight days in Denver. Couldn’t get home.
It adds up. I find the Training Center work very rewarding, and the pay is generous, but the schedule is crushing.
The challenge for me, with long call, is that I don’t like the stress of commuting to EWR on short notice. I did that for years. With the operational challenges at EWR, there is a chance I would not make it, and that is not the kind of life I want to lead. Better for me to fly up the night before, on a ticket I bought, so there are no surprises, stay at a hotel, and fly out the next day, well rested, after a nice workout and a good breakfast.
S, I don’t bid long call - on my airplane (757/767) I bid at about 35%, so I generally get what I want - and in July, it’s 5 international trips, 3 LHR, one KEF, one BRU, and they’re in big blocks - back to back, to minimize the commuting events, but, even though I got exactly what I want, I will spend (with travel days) about 18 at work, and about 12 days at home.
And that’s really my point - some guys are able, and choose, to fly domestic one day trips, and they live near the airport, so they can drive in and be home at night. I have not had that option since 2002. When I am at work, I am at work, and spending the nights in a hotel, until I get home.
So, sure, my “79 hour” schedule in July sounds like I am not working much, but I am getting only 12 days at home in order to fly those hours. I could have picked up an overtime 3 day trip to BRU over the 4th, and made an extra 22 hours, but after 25 straight days out here, I wasn’t interested.
You fly 100 hours as a pilot, you’re not home much. 777/787 trips from EWR to places like NRT (Narita, Tokyo) get you a lot of hours, and more days off, but that’s not the kind of flying I enjoy and it’s really hard on your body.
The real problem, when the public sees “100 hours” they think the job is structured like their job - drive to work, work 8 hours, spend the nights at home, getting paid for each hour you’re on the job. Maybe stay late or work a Saturday or two for OT at time and a half.
And the reality is absolutely nothing like that. Sure, my pay in July is based on 79 hours, but it will take me 18 days of work to get those hours, and each of those days is a night away from home. I spend far more than 3500 hours “on the job” in order to get paid 900 over the course of a year.
And it took me 3 decades to get to this point on the pay scale. 3 decades.
And in my case, that included two combat deployments, over a decade of making less than $60,000/year (working those same 3500 hours, roughly) because of airline economic problems/bankruptcy.
Looking at “100 hours” is like looking at a surgeon, and thinking, “Man, they only operate for a couple hours a day, five days a week and make over half a million” while conveniently ignoring that surgeons take call, spending over 24 hours in the hospital when trauma cases come in, they do rounds at 6 AM to check up on patients, they hold office visits and everything else that adds up to 80+ hour weeks, but yeah, they only spend a couple hours of the day “getting paid”.
That’s exactly how the airlines are - I get paid for one aspect of the job, when the airplane is off the gate, not for all the time I put in before, after, or away from home.
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Why would a person not think that given you were complaining on a public forum about how hard you have to work just to make $100K with overtime, that’s why.
You struck me as envious that pilots make a lot more but only have to work 80 hours a month.
Correct me if I am wrong but were you the same person who talked about this before months ago about pilot compensation.
To be honest, if my son was complaining he has to work 3000 hours a year with overtime to make $100K, I would tell him to think about being a pilot but not sugar coat things and how tough it can be but it usually pays off.
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A lot of people are surprised to find out what a pilot makes.
But it’s usually taken out of context - it fails to include how many hours are actually worked, how long it took me to get here, and the fact that I am forced to retire at a certain age.
I encourage young people to fly if they’re interested in flying, and I’ve helped many get their start.
But if they’re interested in the money, I tell them to look elsewhere.
Look, I spent over 30 years getting paid very little. I’ll spend a bit over 10 years getting paid well.
And my path to the cockpit wasn’t easy. I started in Pensacola in the summer of 1986, with 50 other highly competitive young men with degrees in engineering and physics who were in perfect shape and passed a much more stringent medical than regular military folks had to pass. Only 20 graduated from AOCS, 12 made it through flight training, 3 of them got jets, only one of those original 50 got fighters. I did two combat deployments. I was gone a lot back then.
When I got hired by a major airline in 1997, I thought I was set, until the 2003 bankruptcy when my pay was cut by 65%. Not a typo, I was working for one third of my former pay. I was working 21 days a month, not including travel, for less than the Navy had paid me. Part of why I went back on active duty in 2006 - I doubled my pay from what the airline was paying.
It wasn’t until 2016, when I finally got a Captain bid, that I started making money, but I was already 53, and facing mandatory retirement under a dozen years later.
Yes, I am well-paid - but that observation is a distortion of the history and context in which that pay has happened.
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