What you don't get yet, is this job is not "fun" flying. It's not really even flying, it's NOTHING like you are used to. 98% of the time the autopilot is on. You don't really fly anything the way you want, besides a little leeway on visual approaches.. you pretty much do exactly what your told by ATC all day long.. And that just pretty much involves pushing buttons on the flight guidance panel, or changing vertical speed rates with a thumb wheel to change altitudes. You pre-program the route on the ground and then you just sit there pretty much and do what ATC says for Altitudes with an occasional waypoint change.. And it's not like you do anything fun there.. it's typing a couple keys on the FMS then thats it.

I use to like flying but this job sucks. You get very little sleep, you are always gone, always tired, it's extremely unstable, bases open and close at regionals constantly, so you will likely end up a commuter at some point whether you like it or not (whick KILLS Quality of life), you miss out on all kinds of things with all your friends and family for very little pay for years. If you are married with kids in your career I'd give it about a 25% chance of survival. I'm single but I hear so many stories of unfaithfulness and unhappiness it's crazy. I've seen so many problems with home life it's sickening. You just aren't there so what do you expect. If you happen to have some hot wife or girlfriend at home and your gone 75% of the time what do you think she's doing when you aren't there and she's lonely. Plenty of douchebags will be all over that situation. This is to be expected and if you think otherwise you are just naive. Once you upgrade its not "as" horrible since the pay is liveable, but then you go back to garbage schedules with 11 days off max again because now you are a junior Captain.. Basically starting at the bottom just like a new hire all over again.

No way in hell I would do this career over again if I could start over at your age. If you like flying get a good job and fly for fun on the side. This job made me hate flying. 95% of the people I work with would probably also say they are not happy with this career.. At least at the regional level. There is the occasional type who just LOVE it though for whatever reason.. So maybe you will get lucky.

Oh, and we all thought we were smart and tried to plan out the best route to get to a major ASAP. Things don't really go as planned, ever, in this industry as most of here have seen. So beware.. Not tryin to scare you off but you better damn well be prepared to make 30-40k for a decade and have a pretty miserable quality of life for that first stretch. It may go better but don't for a second think thats guaranteed as we have all experienced. I went to one of the best regionals when I got hired, now it's one of the worst and it's existsistance is questionable at best. This is the way of this industry.. And with seniority systems in place you are completely screwed when something goes bad, you can't just "go" somewhere else without severe consequences. Companies know this and take advantage of it.

Like many others said, I'd reccomend military/guard route only. Flying is more fun, no debt.. If you still want airlines it will make your life so much easier, Minimizing time at the regionals because a major will take you much quicker with MIL background.