JamesNoBrakes

Absolutely, join the military and fly C17s, C5s, C130s, E3s, P-8s or E6s. Most of the guys that got to the international stuff flew in the military prior and got the majority of their experience, discipline and skills there. A few people may have "made it through" the trials and tribulations of flight instructing through regional flying through a national to a major and finally to international major routes, but compared to the military guys (that still have a ways to work up when they get out), I'd bet it's a much smaller percentage. If you're looking at international flying you have to realize it's a very small percentage of US pilots, so you need to really be on your game and do everything that could possibly benefit you in that sense. The guys that spent 2-4 years flight instructing are spending around at least 7 years at regionals before "moving up" to a national (jet blue, VA, etc). There are guys at the nationals jumping ship because the majors are finally hiring and it looks like they might have enough time to get to retirement and by the time they are pretty old, they might be flying international if they are lucky. Military aviators is traditionally where many of the majors have picked up pilots. Many of these still have to spend just a bit of time at a regional, but they can often skip many of the rungs on the ladder that stands before the guys with no military service.

Good luck, the international has always sounded pretty nice, not sure if I want to sacrifice everything to possibly get to do it for the last 5-10 years of my working life. Way too much along the way that I'd miss.