It's not that simple when you start to consider all factors effecting QOL. The biggest one being base structure. Some regionals have better pay and marginally better contracts, but maybe you have to live in Newark...or somewhere else just as miserable and expensive. When you start counting up your expenses both financial and personal cost (i.e. friends, family, kids, where you want to live vs. where you don't, commuting expenses etc.) a few dollars less an hour may very well get balanced out.

RAH isn't for everybody, but regardless of 1st year pay or contract language it might be the right fit for a specific individual. Too many people get wrapped up in the politics of this airline vs. that. But at the end of the day people do what's best for them individually. Lot's of guys say don't go to RAH based on some kind of principle. But at the end of the day, if RAH offered them what they needed...they'd go there as fast as anyone else.

I wish it wasn't that way. I wish there was still a sense of national unity among airline pilots like there was 30 years ago. But that's gone. It was bought and paid for years ago when the unions sold us all under the bus for the sake of their own existence. Apathy and polarization have taken it's toll on America and pilots are far from immune from it.

It comes down to this: make your choice based on facts, not the testimony of disgruntled message board soap boxers.