Originally Posted by
TH67DoorGunner
Thanks very much for the info guys! I am in the Raleigh-Durham, NC area and the airport is 15 minutes from my house. That is pretty hard to igore since RDU is also one of their pilot domiciles... That was the main reason I was looking at them... That and I heard that the promotion time to captain was pretty short...
Republic has a domicile about an hour away in Greensboro, NC, which would be doable as a drive a few times a week...
I have heard great things about Compass and a few others, but my main issue with getting on with one of those companies are two fold:
- Commuting across timezones can REALLY screw with your internal clock leading to increased exhaustion, stress (both on family and at work), etc
- I have to maintain currency in the AH-64 which means I need to reside on the east coast. When you start dropping currency in that thing, life gets pretty stressful (not to mention dangerous)...
It sucks that starting out in regionals has to be so such a bad deal seemingly everywhere... I think my main goal is to just jump in with both feet SOMEWHERE, give all I can, expect to be paid like crap and hopefully find / qualify for something else in a few years. Isn't that what we are all trying to do?

You are one of the lucky ones who lives in a city that has an airline base. I would not commute for a "better regional", that is utterly stupid. Don't even think about commuting. Being based at home is priceless. It's more important than any other factors, like contract language, type of plane, etc. And since you're new, let me tell you that all regionals are the same with the exception of maybe Skywest but those guys are west coast and ord.