Originally Posted by deltajuliet

Living where you fly out of makes the job night and day better. So if you live in a hub or near one, take a serious look at the regional(s) based there. Sometimes that's not possible, and if it's not, a few airlines to look at are:

SkyWest (many bases, great pay, but slower upgrade)

Compass (decent pay, decent upgrade)

Envoy/PSA/Piedmont (flow to American, okay upgrade time at the second two)

Travel benefits would probably be comparable, except at Envoy/PSA/Piedmont (all owned by American Airlines) because American will be the only airline you can non-rev (non revenue travel; fly for free) on. But you can always jumpseat on any airline.

Other airlines:

Mesa has a decent upgrade time but low pay and there are concerns the upgrade will be a lot longer for anyone hired today. Staffing may be a concern.

Republic just got a big pay increase for FO's, but staffing remains a problem and some think the airline will need to declare bankruptcy because it can't afford the new pilot contract longterm.

Endeavor has a solid $20,000 bonus every year you're there for the next few years, but upgrade is still slow and that bonus might go away around 2017-2018.

ExpressJet has a good contract but you'll never upgrade.

Air Wisconsin is similar, good contract/pay but it might not be around in 2-3 years.

Horizon has decent pay but if you check their thread Alaska might be putting it on the chopping block.

You've got a decent idea of GoJet; the airline was created to circumvent negotiations at TSA by the parent company and the first pilots there essentially backstabbed their brothers at TSA. That's frowned upon. If you can help it, avoid it.

I think TSA's okay but don't know much about it.

There's the industry in a nutshell.