Originally Posted by
wessidemike
What is the quality of life 5-10 years into regional flying? I know most people want to get into a major airline, but is it possible to attain semi regular schedules within the regionals with 60,000 - 80k in pay. I am thinking about going back to flying as a career. I'm 31 with a CPL need to redo my CFI, but have not flown in several years. My dream would be to be making 70k by my early 40's. Maybe 85k by 50's and have a schedule which affords me a decent amount of nights spent at home. Is that realistic in todays regional world?
If you got hired ten years ago, then that's about where you would be today (assuming you avoided mesa, COMAIR, and a few other land-mines).
Predicting the regional business going forward is harder because of the likely elimination of most 50 seat RJ's and the ongoing scope battle at major airlines.
But the retirement numbers don't lie...majors will have to either hire a lot of pilots over the next 10-15 years, or downsize dramatically. This could be good for career progression but potentially bad if you want to be a regional lifer. If the majors get desperate enough you could end up with a bunch of regional lifer captains who are unemployed because they don't have anyone in the right seat of their RJ!
I would NOT plan on a regional career...far too many variables, plus one big gotcha that is not a variable at all: The regional system exists to keep labor costs low. It does this by forcibly removing jobs from senior ie more expensive) labor groups and transferring them to younger, more junior, cheaper labor groups. If you spend years at a regional working towards a certain top-end pay scale, you are the victim of fraud...few pilots will ever see the top of any regional's 18-year scale. If you plan to get your TPIC and then get out, well you might have some success at that.