Here's a step by step guide to picking a regional:

1) Where do you live? Make a list of the cities withing driving distance, or cities that you'd be willing to move to.

2) Research ALL of the current regional airlines to see which ones have bases in those cities.

3) Apply to ALL of those regional airlines that fit that criteria.

4) Assuming you get an interview at each, and are successful in each interview, you'll now have a few job offers to pick from.

5) Arrange the options by total compensation. This includes pay, days off, per diem, minimum guarantee, potential for premium pay, healthcare benefits, profit-sharing, stock purchase plans, and any bonus programs. I recently found out that I pay almost 100 bucks less per month for health insurance than one of my friends at another regional carrier.



Now look at your list. Do any of these companies have any HUGE red flags? Do they have a union? Is that important to you? Does the union have a contract, or is the future of their compensation package an unknown? Has the pilot group shown an inability to act in unity with the rest of the industry? Eliminate any carriers with extremely large issues.

Look at your list again. It should be quite short at this point, and the first one or two options should be good ones.


Things that are not important:

1) Jet vs. Prop. Unless your goal is Emirates

2) Upgrade time. It will change. Upgrade time is a snapshot of past performance. The upgrade time at my company has changed by 3 years in the last 4 months. By the time you upgrade, the advertised time when you got hired will be a joke.

3) Signing bonus. A one time pay-out for a substandard compensation package is still a bad deal.

4) Time on reserve. This changes more quickly than upgrade time. If your work rules don't suck, living in the city that you're based in while on reserve is pretty good. I get paid to play Xbox sometimes, and sometimes I get paid to work on my motorcycle. The motorcycle I bought by not agreeing to a sub-standard compensation package.