Go to the Regionals Vs. get Multi PIC time?

[HappySkies777]

Hi folks,

I work for a northern 705 making good dime with good seniority as an FO. I have about 2200 TT out of flight school with no reputable PIC time. Getting my ATPL sticker through our PICUS program.

My short-term goal is to upgrade to a Captain somewhere. My current spot requires extensive PIC time before that can happen. It will take a while considering the guys below me as well. Eventually wanna come south for family..etc.

With how the industry is going and hiring resuming elsewhere, I am in a dilemma if I should make a move and put time at Encore/Jazz..etc hoping for an upgrade or go find a Medevac operator to gain some M-PIC time?

What is your 2 cents?

[RegionalPilot]

The major 705 will upgrade you if you have your ATPL. Some of the have a matrix for time on type if you have low PIC. Jazz is known to have upgraded people with 2000/2500 hours with low PIC.

[lownslow]

My standard answer is “Get MPIC time” but in this case I’m not so sure. Without MPIC you can’t captain a medevac machine in a lot of provinces (maybe all?) so that’s a dead end. Anyone else will know you’re just there to leave, which even if they think is fine they’ll still know a 300 hour pilot will stay much longer than you likely will. That’s not to say to lie to anyone’s HR, they see right through that anyways.

So yeah, apply to a regional today. Apply to all of them and pick your favourite after you get the offer.

[CL-Skadoo!]

If your goal is to work at a major airline and see the world terminal to terminal get yourself a seniority number ASAP. There are other avenues to enjoy this profession, but you have to be true to yourself.

[Rowdy]

Jazz will upgrade anyone with the seniority to hold a skipper spot with an ATPL. I personally know of two people who had 1700hrs and were upgraded.

MPIC is good to have but pick the path that best suits you. Where do you WANT to be?

[thepoors]

Normally I would say get the MPIC, that's what I did, but I only had about 1000hrs when I was making the same decision. You have quite a lot of time already and if you're getting your A's and picus with your current company you'll be exactly what the regionals are looking for. If you want to go to the airlines, just get that picus done. With your A's and ~2500hrs most regionals would have no problem upgrading you pretty quickly (12-18 months).

I think in your case seeking out a 703/704 PIC job wouldn't gain you much right now if your end goal is the airlines. That being said, when COVID hit and layoffs happened, I was definitely glad I had that MPIC in my pocket. But circumstances are different now and it looks like we're rapidly entering a new hiring boom where that won't be a critical factor.

[Loon-A-Tic]

Let's be clear Jazz and other airline's may use senority to offer an opportunity to upgrade, it doesn't in anyway guarantee success. That comes from the candidate not by a senority number.

[goldeneagle]

With how the industry is going and hiring resuming elsewhere, I am in a dilemma if I should make a move and put time at Encore/Jazz..etc hoping for an upgrade or go find a Medevac operator to gain some M-PIC time?

As much as folks like to imply otherwise, consider this scenario. Pilot A is a 21 year old snot nosed little brat that has an ATPL with the ink barely dry that they qualified for using pretend-a-pic time, was hired on Monday. Pilot B is a 10,000 hour pilot of 15 years that's been a captain on type for 5 years in another country was hired on Tuesday.

Pilot A will forever be more 'senior' to pilot B. Pilot B will never get the opportunities offered to pilot A, always be left picking from what's left after pilot A has had pick of whats available. This applies to upgrades, vacation, schedule, everything.

If you truely want an airline career in Canada, then your first, and only focus should be the fastest path to a seniority number, because once you have one, it rules your life, literally, for the rest of your life.

[mmm..bacon]

pretend-a-pic time,

[C-GGGQ]

pretend-a-pic time,

https://tenor.com/bdfl0.gif

[newlygrounded]

With how the industry is going and hiring resuming elsewhere, I am in a dilemma if I should make a move and put time at Encore/Jazz..etc hoping for an upgrade or go find a Medevac operator to gain some M-PIC time?

As much as folks like to imply otherwise, consider this scenario. Pilot A is a 21 year old snot nosed little brat that has an ATPL with the ink barely dry that they qualified for using pretend-a-pic time, was hired on Monday. Pilot B is a 10,000 hour pilot of 15 years that's been a captain on type for 5 years in another country was hired on Tuesday.

Pilot A will forever be more 'senior' to pilot B. Pilot B will never get the opportunities offered to pilot A, always be left picking from what's left after pilot A has had pick of whats available. This applies to upgrades, vacation, schedule, everything.

If you truely want an airline career in Canada, then your first, and only focus should be the fastest path to a seniority number, because once you have one, it rules your life, literally, for the rest of your life.

Alternatively work in a field that actually pretends to care about it's workers. Learn coding and fly for fun, from the way people describe it here it seems like there's nothing good about the industry.

[altiplano]

goldeneagle is absolutely right. Get there, to a mainline, as quick as you can.

That said, if you can do it in a path that will make you a better pilot all the better...

I'd go find a place you can go left seat in a Beech or a Metro in a hurry and pile on flight time, then maybe go to a regional... or better yet get a mainline interview straight from there... I mean you already have a couple thousand hours of large aircraft 705 time, maybe jet time... it will still tick their matrix...

If I'm the pilot interviewer on that panel and I meet a guy that has some 705 time, but wanted to get a left seat and push himself to progress so went to a self dispatched turboprop job where you have to make it all happen, I'd take him over the guy that only sat right seat fat dumb and happy as a first job and took the upgrade after his PICUS came through. Diversity in experience develops a better pilot. I'd rather fly with that guy too.

If you can't make that happen on your path, all 705 dispatched, well that's the way it goes... easy life for you I guess... but I respect the guy that crawled through the business and made it still...

[DanWEC]

If you're granted an interview at AC as an Express applicant ostensibly you already have a heavily stacked acceptance likelyhood of 90% just by showing up.

If you want to get to AC and have a very reliable and stable job in the meantime, get to Jazz if you can. The major downside is you might not see some of the fun, life-changing and story-making jobs outside of the regionals, but if a career at AC is the goal, that's the safest path.
I made the choice of going from a decent job at Sky to the first major that called. It was a very tough decision with a few contributing factors, but the way things sit today, I could call it a mistake. (I'm with about 100 others at the one company that will have layoffs for the foreseeable future. Just a bad roll of the dice for us.) It's been a learning experience and I've made some pretty good lemonade in the meantime by changing careers out of necessity, but if you want AC and stability, stay with Express instead of trying to fight uphill to get back!

[Flight94]

My experience,

1 year piston single work, 1000hrs.

Next 6mo, single turboprop captain, then 4mo multi turbine FO. Then captain for 2 years. Then 737.

For me, and many of my coworkers, we were able to skip the regionals due to getting mpic time. Sunwing, WJ, Flair, Swoop have been where we went. Or, some choose to go DEC at a decent outfit and enjoy life outside the airlines.

The great thing about pic/mpic, is you are far more employable when the industry gets lean.

Good luck

[goldeneagle]

Alternatively work in a field that actually pretends to care about it's workers. Learn coding and fly for fun, from the way people describe it here it seems like there's nothing good about the industry.

There is a huge misconception that folks can just 'learn to code' and life will be nirvanna, high paying jobs, yadda yadda. That comes from folks outside the biz, looking in. Kinda like folks off the street see a pilot wearing 3 bars and thinking they are some high paid demi god, folks on the outside that dont know or understand the reality.

I've been in the software biz for 30 years now. If you want the high paying job in this biz, you need some qualifications in another field. In my case, the software aspect is just a means to an end, when I was full time front line coding, my job was essentially applied engineering. I am an engineer, and I was writing code that applied the engineering knowledge into real world process control systems. Contrary to popular belief, the big bucks in software are NOT the folks sitting at a PC writing business apps or making websites.

Over my time in the industry, the big bucks have typically gone to folks that are P.Eng first, software person second. The industry is changing as a lot of things are morphing into the AI field. Want the big bucks starting out today, best have a masters or better in mathematics. If you want to fight over the scraps, ya, learn php in your spare time and start doing website back end work, then you can compete with a sharp young kid in Islamabad willing to work for 25 bucks a day.