Originally Posted by Shiner

It's tough to say where I would go if I was starting out right now. But I'll tell you about how I ended up staying here and hope my hind sight helps in some way.

I hired on at Envoy back in 2013, the first and only interview I did at the regionals. Skywest called when I was in training, and it turns out it would have been a good move to go there. They've continued to hire since then, so I'd have lived in base as an FO, and upgraded by now. It was a tough call to stay at Envoy (American Eagle, back in those days) when Skywest called, but I was in the middle of training and decided to stay put. I didn't think leaving after such a short time would look good on my resume.

Mesa was another option since I live in one of their bases, but after asking a few Mesa pilots about how they liked working there, I decided it was not worth the lateral move. Again, I missed another opportunity at a faster upgrade, but overall I think I am happier at Envoy than I would have been at Mesa

Compass was another option that came up in 2014. I know a handful of guys around my seniority at Envoy that went there and caught the quick upgrade. By the time I'd considered it, we had a flow at Envoy, and AA being my top choice, I decided to wait it out. Like Skywest, Compass probably would have been better for me in the short term. Longer term, there's just no way to know if it would have gotten me to a major (or specifically AA) any faster or slower.

I'm a pretty risk averse guy. I always felt a lateral move was a bit on the risky side. It's working out of a lot of guys. But I'm sure some people regret it, too.

The moral of the story is you won't know what the right move was until years later. Things change fast at the airlines, and doubly fast at the regionals. You just have to gather as much information as possible, consider what's important to you, make your decision, and have a good attitude regardless of if it was the best choice or not. At the end of the day, we all have a pretty great career ahead. If you can't see that, you probably won't be happy anywhere.

I'm still not sure if I'd have had a better career at Skywest, Compass, or Envoy. Right now I'm projecting flow in 2020 to AA, my top choice. If DAL, UAL, or a couple of others call first, I'll go. Would I have gotten to my career airline faster at another regional? Will my career airline be around until I retire? Ask me in about 30 years.

If any new guys want a sounding board for deciding where to go, shoot me a PM. I'd be happy to help.


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