We've all been where you are now. When I was there, I was so frustrated by getting answers like you were given above when asking for advice. Now that I'm here, I truly understand the sentiment. This industry is so volatile, and so much will change in that time. Contracts, work rules, pay, possibly mergers, there is just so much that is unknowable looking forward.

The best advice I can give you is to hold off on committing yourself as long as humanly possible. Some cadet programs (e.g. Envoy) want you to sign a 2-year commitment a year before you'd hit mins. That is insane, and no one should ever do that.

Republic is a great place right now for all the reasons you mentioned. I see no reason why we won't continue to be at the top of the regional pecking order, but the details will change, and as always, the devil's in the details. Will we take delivery of these 100 planes we've firmed up? If we do, upgrade times and reserve times could conceivably continue dropping. If we don't, we've drastically overhired over the last year and you'll see upgrade times and reserve times go up as we have an oversupply of FOs. Will the economy take a turn for the worse? What strategies will our mainline codeshare partners take with their regionals and how do we fit into that?

WN does take a number of our pilots, as do all of the airlines. Fewer, as you'd expect, from the likes of AA where most of their new pilots are either flow from the wholly-owneds or ex-military. This, too, will all change in the next 2-5 years as retirements really ramp up.

Here's the dirty little secret they won't tell you at the WO regionals: flow can go away at any point, too. It's a recruiting tactic, but in this day and age, it shouldn't be a primary means of moving on for anyone with a college degree. Insurance policy? Sure. But sitting at a regional for 6-8 years in an era where we're upgrading in 2 or less and should conceivably be competitive for most airlines in another 2 years means unless you HAVE to go to AA, you're more likely than not wasting your time flying at a regional when you could be making more elsewhere.

All that said, any opportunity one has to drive to work is immensely valuable for quality of life.

Give it a year. Keep tabs on the things you're currently already looking at, and see where the winds take us this time next year. Pay special attention to other airlines and their contract situations. While I think we all like having a dick-measuring contest on some level and enjoy being near the top compensation among regionals, the reality is, if others get contracts better than ours, it increases our leverage during negotiations. Right now, the company has sizable leverage simply because we're filling classes for the next 6 months. Everyone wants to come to YX, and that doesn't give the company any incentive to up our pay or improve our work rules.

Look at ExpressJet. They've really struggled filling classes, and have been hemorrhaging pilots right and left for the last year. That, among other things, forced their hand into upping pay. Things are improving somewhat over there now.